


From Under a Shadow

by cryptid_jack



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Aloy and Erend go on an adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Erend being a very good uncle, Erend drags his clan into the 31st century because fuck the patriarchy that's why, Erend figuring his shit out, F/M, Fluff, romance baby, some mention of Erend being non-sexually abused as a child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 79,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23459914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptid_jack/pseuds/cryptid_jack
Summary: Being Captain of the Vanguard has kept Erend plenty busy since Hades' defeat, but everything gets turned on its head when his cousin unexpectedly arrives from the Claim to inform him that the elders of their village want him to return and become the next Ealdorman. Most Oseram would regard the request as an honor, but considering the fact that Erend and Ersa both cut ties with their clan years before, Erend isn't inclined to help now, no matter how dire their straits. Avad and Aloy convince him to reconsider, however, and help him see the offer as an opportunity to make a real change in the way his clan operates so no child has to go through the hardships he and his sister did ever again.In the meantime, Aloy takes a break from her quest to find Elisabet Sobeck's home to acquire a very special gift for Erend, though becomes injured in the process and recovers under his care.
Relationships: Aloy/Erend (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Comments: 206
Kudos: 208





	1. Blood-kin

**Author's Note:**

> **Please Read** : Just as a heads up here at the top, obviously I'm playing fast and loose with Erend and Ersa's past for this fic since we learn pretty much nothing about it in game. Also, I know Erend specifically said he was going to bring Ersa's body back to their clan for her funeral rites, which doesn't make a lot of sense with the unhappy past I gave them, but it'll be explained in a later chapter, I promise. Also, content warning for mentions of (non-sexual) child abuse in Erend and Ersa's past. I won't be very explicit with it, but it _will_ be mentioned.  
> Follow me over at @dawnfromzero over on tumblr for more HZD content!

Springtime in Meridian was cooler than summer, but not by anywhere near a large enough margin for Erend’s tastes. Almost three years of stewing in his leather and steel armor and the Captain of the Vanguard still hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was slowly becoming a mustachioed, walking, talking slab of over-boiled, over-salted boar meat. He _longed_ for a cool breeze, prayed for one even, despite his not being a religious man. He preferred to leave that nonsense to the sun-priests, though at this point he wouldn’t object to them asking their god to tone it down a little, just this once.

Erend wiped his brow against the sleeve of his shirt and cut a path towards the shade cast along the sides of the street by the buildings that towered overhead, despite foot traffic being noticeably denser there. He could handle bumping shoulders with all and sundry if it saved him a few miserable degrees, though.

At least there _were_ buildings to cast shadows on this section of street, the man thought absently as he waded through the crowd. While Meridian had been mostly evacuated before the Eclipse swept through like a plague of locusts, and the cult hadn’t even bothered attacking the majority of the city in their efforts to get to the spire, the sections they _had_ hit had been completely decimated. As he’d walked through the aftermath, cleaning up a few lingering cultists and rogue machines, Erend would have sworn there wasn’t two whole bricks left to rub together in some places, particularly where the Deathbringers had passed.

The vanguardsman was still shocked that he’d made it through in one piece considering the frankly insane odds they’d all been up against. Sure, he’d come away with a few new scars and a shoulder that ached when it rained, but he still had all his bits, and so did everyone nearest and dearest to him, so he’d happily mark that down as a win in the ledger of his life. If he were being honest (and he always tried to be honest) he mostly put his, and _everyone’s_ , survival down to Aloy. Her brilliance, her strength, her cunning… they’d all carried the day and allowed her to rally everyone to bring an end to the Eclipse, their old world death god, _and_ its plan to end life on Earth as they knew it.

Just thinking about the redheaded huntress was enough to bring a smile to Erend’s lips, though it was almost immediately accompanied by a wistful sigh as he cast his gray eyes skyward, wondering, as he often did, where she was and what she might be doing. Hopefully, wherever she was, it wasn’t as baking hot as it was there in Meridian; he knew she wasn’t any more partial to the heat than he was, after all.

Erend’s feet carried him all the way back to the palace of their own accord, the familiar path from the main gates to the cramped, somewhat messy office he’d inherited from his sister long since memorized. Granted, in the old days he’d made the trek from the gate so he could report to his sister… these days, however, he was the one receiving reports.

_So many reports._

No wonder Ersa had always been looking for any excuse she could get to go on patrol, or train, or ‘consult’ with Avad. Taking reports from not just all over the city, but the rest of the kingdom as well, and consolidating them all into a coherent picture of what was happening in the Sundom at any given moment was enough to drive a man to drink. Only he’d been cutting back on _that_ particular outlet ever since… well, since becoming the Captain of the Vanguard, so he couldn’t even seek relief from his headaches there.

Marad, despite being an obnoxious circle-talker, had proved vital in helping Erend keep it all together. Ersa had never had the patience to work extensively with her king’s spymaster (she’d never been able to stand his vagaries on a personal level), but her younger brother had found himself both less proud _and_ significantly more patient, so benefited from the older man’s guidance. They would have had to work together at some level regardless, but taking a hammer to his own pride and allowing Marad to mentor him in the weeks following Dervahl’s capture had gone a long way towards them integrating their efforts much more efficiently than Erend suspected his sister ever had.

Still, the new captain had to do a lot more very dull reading than he liked, and he never looked forward to the hours he was forced to spend in the stuffy little room he now approached.

Before he reached it, however, one of the vanguard officers intercepted him, drawing Erend up short. “Hey, Gelda,” he said as he registered the round face peeking out from under the slightly too big helmet. “Something wrong?” he asked, brow immediately furrowed when he saw the grim expression on the woman’s face.

Recently promoted to sergeant, Gelda was one of the few Oseram remaining in Meridian that had originally accompanied him, and a handful of others, away from the Claim in self-imposed exile from their clan years before. She and Ersa had been friends as children, and she’d become one of Erend’s closest friends after leaving their village of Ironwood, so he’d gotten quite good at reading her over the years. Gelda had been the quiet sort for as long as he could recall, though she could swing a hammer with the very best of them, and despite her significantly shorter stature, could almost drink him under the table.

To see the normally stoic woman looking outright worried immediately sent up red flags for Erend.

“There’s a visitor waiting for you in your office,” she said, lips twisting into a disapproving frown. “Wanted to give you a heads up before you walked in blind.”

Erend’s eyes narrowed, not at his friend, but in the direction of his office, which was technically still a few hallways away. “Who?” he asked, unable to immediately think of who might not only merit his sergeant warning him, but also inspire such a dour expression.

Gelda was quiet for a moment, eyes avoiding his as she absently adjusted the heavy leather belt at her hips. Concern mounting by the moment, nothing could have prepared Erend for her answer. “Your cousin, Dorund.”

He stared at her, gob-smacked, and the woman shrugged, as if to say _‘I know’_. “You’re sure?” he asked, though he knew it was a stupid question.

His sergeant did too, but she indulged him anyways, recognizing what a startling blow the news was to him. “I’m sure. Our mothers were cousins, I saw plenty of him coming up.” Gelda’s expression softened a little, an introspective look overcoming her frown. “He’s grown,” she added, more to herself than to him.

Erend tugged absently at his mustache with gloved fingers, frowning deeply at the news. If Gelda recognized him then he’d take her word for it. Dorund had been young when they’d left, barely sixteen, and despite his being Erend’s first cousin, their paths hadn’t crossed much. What with villages in the claim generally being run by one family (though occasionally as many as three), keeping track of blood ties was often a headache best left to scribes. Technically, Erend was pretty sure Gelda was his third cousin, once removed, but he always struggled to remember. Dorund, on the other hand, was his mother’s sister’s child, which was at least a little more straight forward.

Here, so far from home, with a long history of bad blood between Erend and his family, being so closely related would do the other man few favors, however.

“Did he say what he wanted?” Erend finally asked.

Gelda shook her head. “No,” she replied, then hesitated before adding, “Seemed… serious, though.”

“How so?” Erend asked as he started them walking, slowly, towards his office once more.

His sergeant considered her answer, then finally said, “He’s come a long way alone and he said he’d wait as long as it took.” Erend grunted, and she added, “Plus he looked nervous enough to puke.”

The man looked at his friend sidelong but she offered no further insight, leaving him to consider her words in silence as they walked. Dorund had always been a fairly soft spoken child, as far as he remembered, though he didn’t recall him being sickly or particularly nervous by nature. Granted, a lot could happen in four years, though that still left the question of what had brought him so very far from the village they’d both grown up in.

He could, Erend grudgingly considered, be looking for a fresh start there in Meridian like so many other Oseram freshly arrived from the Claim. Maybe he, too, had grown tired of their clan’s restrictive ways and decided to come out west where a man could stand half a chance of taking his destiny in his own hands…

“You want me to come in with you?” Gelda offered as they reached the door to his office.

Erend considered for a moment, then heaved a sigh through his nose and said, “Nah, I can handle it. I’ll catch up with you later and fill you in.”

His sergeant nodded and offered him a casual salute before walking away, leaving Erend alone and hesitating outside the door of his own office. Finally, the captain gave himself a mental shake, seized the door knob, and pushed his way inside to find a man standing next to the single window the room offered with his back to the door. He turned sharply at Erend’s entrance, brown eyes wide with surprise in a narrow, angular face that the captain recognized from his youth.

His cousin, four years his junior at what Erend realized with some surprise must be twenty years old, was a few inches shorter than him, and a good deal thinner. Whatever he was doing these days, it certainly wasn’t fighting or hunting… though a closer look at the sharpness of Dorund’s features made Erend wonder if the boy had been eating enough.

“Erend,” Dorund said, seeming to find his voice again as he approached and offered his hand to shake, an uncertain smile on his lips. “It’s good to see you.”

Erend considered his cousin’s proffered hand for a moment and the other man’s smile faltered further. His first instinct was to let him hang, to refuse the gesture of good will out of spite for a place he had left years before when the people there had failed him and his sister one time too many. His better nature saved him, though, and just as Dorund was beginning to withdraw his hand, Erend seized it and gave it a brief shake as he reminded himself that his cousin hadn’t been why Erend had left, or why he and Ersa had stayed gone. He’d been far too young to have any say in the events that had lead to the siblings cutting ties with their clan, after all.

Ersa had told him on her death bed that he had a lot of growing up to do; Erend figured not holding a grudge against an innocent party was probably a part of that.

“Hello, Dorund,” Erend said and the relief that spread across his cousin’s features was enough to tell the man he’d done the right thing. “What brings you to Meridian?” he asked and waved for the younger man to take the seat in front of his desk while he took the one opposite.

Dorund was quiet for a long moment, taking more time than was strictly necessary to sit and make himself comfortable. Erend let him, recognizing a stalling tactic when he saw one; whatever reason his cousin had to show up on his doorstep out of the blue like this, it made him uncomfortable. Nervous, even.

Eventually, when he couldn’t reasonably delay any longer, Dorund forced himself to take a breath and said, “I’m sure you’ve already heard the news, but your father passed away last year.”

Erend refused to twitch at the mention of Branuf, Ealdorman of Ironwood, and the bane of Erend’s existence. He did, however, feel that familiar line of tension start to creep across his broad shoulders and up his neck as he reflexively grit his teeth to keep from spitting.

“Yeah,” the captain said, scowling across the desk at his cousin as he settled back deeper into his chair in an attempt to relax. “I did. Heard it was a Ravager that did the deed.”

“Sawtooth, actually,” Dorund corrected him automatically, obviously becoming more uncomfortable by the moment if his own ramrod straight posture and vice-like grip in which he held his own hands was anything to go by.

Neither Erend or Ersa had mourned their father’s passing when word had eventually made its way all the way to Meridian just a few months before Ersa herself died. Branuf had been a harsh man, not shy about laying a hand on his children when they tried to buck the control he exerted over their lives, and completely uncompromising in all things. A staunch adherent to tradition even by Oseram standards, Branuf had nearly disowned Ersa altogether when she’d defied his will and shaved her head to become a warrior rather than be married off to a man she hated for the sake of a better trade deal between their families. Erend hadn’t fared much better; worse, maybe, considering he hadn’t had the nerve to take control of his own life the way his sister had. No, he’d caved and gone along with the intensive warrior training his father had forced him into; ironic, considering that was all Ersa had ever wanted but could never have.

He’d hated every minute of it, but the hours he spent teaching his sister everything he’d learned any time they could get a minute away together was something he’d always treasure. She’d been better than him at it, that’s for sure, but then Ersa’s heart had always been more in it, too. Over time Erend had gained pride in his abilities, but only once he’d left home and been able to use them to his own ends, rather than at his father’s insistence.

Unfortunately, now that was all he really knew how to do.

“So?” Erend prompted, making Dorund start. “What of it?”

“Well,” his cousin said, then swallowed thickly before continuing, “After your father passed, your uncle Toruf served as the village’s ealdorman.”

The vanguardsman snorted at the thought of his father’s younger brother. Toruf had been Branuf’s shadow in so many ways; an admittedly lighter hand with the people around him than his brother, but he also lacked his follow through in the hard decisions that any ealdorman faced in the day-to-day running of a clan.

Erend noted the past tense of his cousin’s statement as he leaned back further in his seat and kicked his feet up onto his desk. His sister, had she been there, would have slapped them right back off again, but the captain tried not to think about that and focus on the conversation at hand instead. “So, what? Did he get eaten by a Sawtooth too?”

“No,” Dorund said, drawing out the vowel longer than his host was entirely comfortable with. The man was finally coming around to why he was there, and a pit of dread was beginning to develop in the captain’s stomach. “The clan decided that his leadership wasn’t… satisfactory.”

“And what’s that got to do with me?” Erend asked, though he already knew, with a horrible, grim sort of certainty, _exactly_ what that had to do with him.

Dorund knew he did too as they locked eyes across the desk, but he said the words anyways. “They want you to take his place as Ealdorman, Erend.”

Well, his cousin wasn’t spineless, he’d give him that much. He knew exactly what this request meant, what it was really asking of Branuf Ealdorman’s only son, and he’d been bold enough to ask it anyways.

“No,” Erend said, dread blooming into righteous fury that burned through him and drove the man to his feet. “I cut ties with the clan, I _left_ , and they were happy to see me go,” he snarled, hands clenching into fists. “The lot of you can rot for all I care.” It was an ugly sentiment and he knew it, but the hurt still ran deep, despite the almost five years that had passed since Ersa had been taken by the raids and their father and refused to send a force after the raiding party to get her back.

He’d been glad to see her go. He’d never been able to control her the way he wanted, so it was better, in Branuf’s eyes, that she simply not be there at all, a reminder of all his failures…

So Erend had left too, with a handful of like-minded, mostly younger, clan members who had also lost people, dead set on rescuing his sister and willing to cut all ties with the rest of his blood-kin to make that happen. Ersa had rescued herself in the end, of course, but he’d been there to meet her when she had, and the world had been their oyster.

But now she was gone and it was just him, still aching with the loss of her, fumbling through life and trying to fill her shoes as best he could in honor of her memory…

Erend rounded on his cousin, blue eyes bright and sharp and fierce as he stared him down. “How _dare_ you come here and ask me to come back now,” he growled and leaned over to grip the edge of his desk so hard his knuckles creaked. “You’re old enough to know why I left. Why we stayed away.” Dorund flinched back at the intensity of his gaze, dropping his own eyes as his hands gripped the arms of the seat he hadn’t dared leave. His meekness didn’t help Erend’s temper and the captain scoffed in disgust then pushed himself upright again with enough force to disturb a stack of reports. He ignored the sheaves of paper as they slid sideways across his desk and, voice low and bitter, said, “You want a new ealdorman so bad, take the position yourself.”

The jab was enough to make Dorund look up at him again, though Erend had turned his back on his cousin and gone to the window where he leaned heavily against the sill as he stared out across the narrow section of city it granted him. There wasn’t a breath of breeze to be had, no matter how badly the vanguardsman wished for it; anything to clear the air in the room of all the tension and built up resentment.

He’d thought he was over it all, fool that he was. Fighting a war, helping found the Vanguard and taking over for his sister, then mounting a resistance against an Old World demon and its cult of worshipers had kept him busy enough to buy into the lie, he supposed. But now here his cousin was with a cart full of bad memories in tow to prove just how much sway the past still held over him in spite of how far he’d come, and the incredible obstacles he’d conquered both by himself and with the help of new friends.

Had he really even grown at all since leaving the Claim? Standing there at the window, head bowed, gloved hands clinging to the windowsill like it was a lifeline, Erend felt like a kid again; hurt, angry, and betrayed… lashing out at a world that had made it clear time and time again that there was no place for him in it.

Behind him, Erend could hear Dorund get to his feet, but he didn’t turn to face him. “I don’t want the position, Erend.”

“Yeah, well, neither do I.”

“Our family wouldn’t have me anyways.”

Erend scoffed and lifted his head enough to look out the window once more. “Guess we’ve got that much in common, then.”

Dorund sighed and tried again. “I know you resent us, Erend, and I also know we deserve it after everything that happened. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t need you.” When Erend didn’t respond, his cousin pressed on, sounding tired now, rather than anxious as he had a few minutes before. “The last two years of the raids after you left were… hard; we lost a lot of people and we’ve never recovered. Now the raids have stopped but there’s so few of us left that holding the village defenses against machines is getting more difficult with each season that passes.” He seemed almost relieved to finally speak frankly about the matter, the words spilling like blood from a wound. “The real reason they want you is because the elders heard about your position here in Meridian. You fought the Sun-king’s war for him, twice over now, and they know that if you agree to come back to the clan, he’d feel obligated to send you with the resources we are in dire need of.”

A soft, scathing laugh escaped Erend and he finally found the strength to push himself upright again, then started towards the door.

“Money, food, people to rebuild,” Dorund persisted as he followed his cousin into the the hallway. “Ironwood is falling apart at the seams, Erend. We won’t make it to the winter solstice at the rate we’re going.”

Erend stopped in the middle of the hallway and finally looked at his cousin again, eyes cold now, as he said in a cool, flat tone, “The clan decided Ersa and I were more trouble than we were worth years ago, and now I’m telling _you_ , I’ve decided it’s not worth my trouble to help the clan.” He turned on heel then and left without looking back.

He had his daily meeting with Avad to get to.

The sun beat down on him from overhead as the captain crossed the bridge into the palace proper, but where he’d felt parboiled on his way to his office, now the man couldn’t shake the cold, empty feeling that had taken over him as the heat of his anger finally faded. Thoughts turned inward, Erend barely noticed the groups of nobles he passed as they left, his feet carrying him up the broad, shallow stairs of their own accord rather than by any direction of his. Before he knew it, he was outside the tall, impressive doors that opened into the king’s reception room, and the captain forced himself to take a moment and put on his business face before entering.

“Erend,” Avad said, eyebrows lifting fractionally when the captain entered. “You’re early,” he began, then paused, open expression settling into a frown as he cast an expert eye over his friend and immediately asked, “What’s wrong?”

“What, me being early means the world is ending?” Erend asked with a snort as he approached the king. “Again,” he added as an afterthought in a further attempt at humor, forcing a wry smile to his lips.

Half-reclined on a divan and propped up by embroidered pillows with a swath of paperwork laid out on the low table before him, Avad shot him a skeptical look. Realizing Erend wasn’t inclined to give him an straightforward answer, the king sighed through his nose then motioned at a nearby servant girl waiting in the wings and she hurried forward with a tray bearing a decanter of wine and a few cups. He sat up as she poured, then passed the first glass she offered him on to Erend, who eyed it warily and didn’t move to accept it immediately.

When the king persisted, however, staring the captain down wordlessly, Erend heaved a sigh of his own and finally took the cup, drained half of it in one go, and then dropped onto the opposite end of the divan.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Avad said once the servant girl, as well as the few guards stationed in the room had stepped outside and closed the door behind them. “I’ve never known any good news to accompany that particular look on your face.”

“What look?” Erend asked with a frown as he took another sip of his wine. He used to hate the stuff, but it’d started to grow on him since moving to Meridian. It didn’t pack anywhere near the punch a good mug of ale did, of course, but it was better at taking the edge off without leaving him in a questionable state to perform his vanguard duties.

Avad raised a brow at his question, then reached up and removed his crown. “The look you wear when you suggest the world might be ending as a poor attempt at humor,” he said as he set the thing aside and ran his long fingers through his dark hair, brow furrowing a little at the relief of having it off.

Erend always had pitied him having to wear the stupid thing all hours of the day; it looked heavy. Still, the fact that he was one of only a handful of people Avad would remove it in the presence of did mean something to the captain. It was, in its own way, a gesture of trust on the king’s part.

“The world’s not ending,” Erend reassured his friend and Avad smiled.

“Glad to hear it,” the king said as he settled back into the cushions once more and took a sip of his own wine. “Tell me what _is_ happening, then.”

Erend sighed and shifted so he could lean against the back of the divan, finger tapping absently against his cup as he considered his options. He could refuse, of course. Avad trusted him enough to know that if there were an actual danger to him or the kingdom he wouldn’t hide it, so he wouldn’t push if Erend didn’t want to share. On the other hand, his meeting with Dorund had left the captain feeling like he was on uncertain ground that might drop out from him at any moment. He hadn’t felt that way since Ersa died and he didn’t like feeling that way again now. Talking helped, he knew it did, but raised the way he had been, sharing his innermost thoughts had never come easy to him with anyone but his sister.

Ersa had trusted Avad in a way that she had extended to few outside of Erend himself, though, which had earned the sun-king the captain’s trust as well. So, after a long minute, he finally said, “My cousin Dorund came to visit me today.”

Avad frowned, no doubt running through a mental list of the people he knew from Erend and Ersa’s past. “I don’t recognize the name,” he admitted after a moment. “Is he from-”

“The village?” Erend clarified for him, and nodded. “Yeah. He was a kid when we left. First cousin, but neither of us was particularly close to him growing up.”

He fell silent once more and Avad gave his captain a moment before gently prompting him again. “Why did he search you out here in Meridian? It’s a long road to travel from Ironwood for a cousin one wasn’t on close terms with.”

Erend grit his teeth and stared into the depths of the dark, red wine in his cup, then drank down the rest of it in one go before saying, “The elders sent the poor chuff all the way down here to ask me to be ealdorman.”

This time, both of Avad’s eyebrows shot up. Beginning to recognize the full weight of the situation his friend had found himself in, the king took up the decanter of wine and refilled Erend’s glass. “I think you should start at the beginning.”

It took longer than Erend expected, especially since Avad was long since familiar with the particulars of he and Ersa’s history with their clan and the reasons they’d become freebooters in the first place. It was still a lot of… messy details to unpack, though the fact that his friend kept the wine coming definitely helped.

By the time he finished, Erend was on his feet again, pacing back and forth in front of Avad’s divan while the king watched, asking the occasional question, though mostly just listening as his friend vented. The captain had expected Avad to be more incensed on his behalf, but instead of looking angry, or even annoyed, the king was regarding Erend with that very particular, solemn expression he always got when he was about to tell the man something he didn’t want to hear.

“Fire and spit, Avad, don’t you _dare_ tell me he’s right. I am not going back to that forge-cursed slag-heap, dammit!” Erend snapped as he put his cup down on the table with a little too much force, nearly sloshing the contents in the process.

Avad sat up straight once more and raised a calming hand, a sympathetic expression on his face. “Your father treated you and Ersa in cruel, unforgivable ways, Erend,” he said, voice low and calm that did little to allay his friend’s rising temper. “You _know_ I can empathize with you on that front,” he added with a wry little twist of his mouth. Erend snorted and looked away, arms crossed tightly across his broad chest, but he didn’t storm off either, so Avad continued, “But that doesn’t mean that your cousin is wrong.”

Erend’s gaze snapped back to his king’s face, an expression of hurt and betrayal flitting briefly across his own features. “You’d want me to help them, after all they’ve done?” he asked bitterly.

Avad got to his feet and approached his friend, though he didn’t reach out to him, knowing the other man would only shrug him off if he tried at this point. “Your father is dead, Erend,” he reminded the captain gently. “In fact, it sounds as though a great deal of your clan is.”

“Not my slag-sucker of an uncle,” Erend growled, mostly to himself, scowling at the thought.

“So it would seem,” Avad agreed. “But I think you are missing the opportunity that has been laid at your feet.”

Erend’s mouth twisted and he pointedly refused to look at his king. “Like what?” he scoffed skeptically.

“Like the ability to enact real _change_ in your village, and among your clan,” Avad pointed out, tone coaxing as he tilted his head to catch his friend’s gaze. Erend resisted at first, but couldn’t refrain from finally meeting his eyes when he continued, “Think of it, my friend. As ealdorman, you could welcome back freebooters looking for a permanent home, open the village up to trade with other tribes, toss out the old traditions that would make women like your sister property of their fathers and husbands…” He’d struck a nerve there, he could tell from the way the other man’s shoulders tensed, so he pressed the subject. “You have the opportunity to make Ironwood into the place it _could_ have been if it hadn’t been caught under the thumb of backwards thinking men like your father. It could become a place that would not only accept someone like Ersa, but _celebrate_ her in the way she always deserved.”

The observation hit like a punch to the gut, and left Erend feeling just as winded.

Sensing he’d gained the upper hand, Avad continued. “Don’t do it for the sake of the people you and Ersa left behind, do it for the sake of those yet to come. All those children who still have some hope that they might change their destiny without being ground under the boot of tradition until they either break or flee.”

Erend could feel his resolve wavering, and he almost resented Avad for his ability to talk him around to what was sensible. He could _see_ it was sensible, he wasn’t as much of a fool as he liked to pretend he was sometimes, but the scars ran deep and clinging to righteous indignation always felt so damn _good_ . His extended family didn’t _deserve_ a second chance, the darkest, ugliest part of him insisted even as his better nature pointed out that kids like Dorund hadn’t done anything to deserve his wrath. His clan was in danger of dying out, the remaining survivors to be scattered to the four winds, possibly to find themselves in Meridian itself.

Once upon a time Erend would have relished the very thought, but now, older and unfortunately wiser than the day he’d first left Ironwood, the idea pricked his conscience. He scowled at Avad for his trouble but the king only smiled and rested a hand on his shoulder. “You’re just trying to get me to leave because I’m not as pretty as Ersa,” the captain huffed, still annoyed, but unable to be angry with his friend.

The other man snorted in a distinctly un-kingly fashion, a wide smile briefly flashing across his face. After a moment, though, he gave Erend’s shoulder a gentle shake and, earnest, rather than teasing, replied, “I don’t _want_ you to leave, Erend, quite the opposite, if I’m being honest.” He sighed thoughtfully and allowed his hand to drop from the other man’s shoulder. Avad’s smile turned rueful and he said, “But my wanting you here to watch my back doesn’t change the fact that you are _needed_ elsewhere.”

Erend only grunted at the statement that so closely mirrored his cousin’s, and the king raised both his hands in surrender. “I won’t force you out, Erend, you’re always welcome here as Captain of the Vanguard,” Avad said earnestly. “But… please, give it some thought. For your own sake, and for what remains of your clan.”

A quiet groan escaped Erend as he pinched the bridge of his nose and finally said, “Fine. I will _think_ about it.” Avad’s smile returned and Erend caught it, making him wave a finger at the king and repeat himself. “ _Think_ about it!”

“That’s all that I ask,” Avad said in a mollifying tone as he walked his friend towards the door. “And know that if you do decide to return to the Claim, of course I would be happy to discuss what kind of assistance I could send you with to help with rebuilding your village and defending it until things are stable once more.” Erend shot him a sharp look and Avad countered his unspoken castigation with a defensive, “I said _if!_ ” then pushed the captain lightly out the door and continued, “Now, go; think about it elsewhere and come back when you’ve made up your mind.”

The door closed sharply behind him and Erend found himself out on the veranda once more, flanked on either side by members of his own vanguard, who had taken up position outside rather intrude on the conversation within. He could sense both men’s curious looks in spite of the covering their helmets provided and snapped, “Eyes front! Are you on duty or not?”

Both men flinched and immediately saluted him, not daring to breathe again until Erend had disappeared down the stairs towards the bridge into the city proper.

Erend felt even more unstable on his feet coming out of his meeting with Avad than he had going in, and it had nothing to do with the quantity of wine he had consumed; more like the entire world had tilted a few more degrees on its axis in the course of a single conversation. All the arguments echoing around his skull like scattershot was enough to make the man want to dunk his head in the nearest keg of scrappersap and not come up again until he’d drank his way to the bottom.

He wouldn’t though; he couldn’t. He’d promised himself that he’d do better after realizing that he’d spent the night his sister had been kidnapped in a drunken stupor, because no matter what Ersa had insisted on her deathbed, Erend couldn’t shake the feeling that if he’d been sober that night… if he’d been more _reliable,_ his sister wouldn’t have felt she needed to protect him from Dervahl. She’d said he needed to grow up, and he knew she wasn’t wrong, but figuring out just what that entailed was harder than he’d expected. Cutting back on how much he drank, though, was one step he felt certain was in the right direction.

Even if it did feel like it made his life infinitely more difficult, and at least a little bit less fun.

Erend’s feet carried him through the city, to the main gate, and out onto the long bridge that connected Meridian to the mesa beyond. The eclipse had done one hell of a number on it, but Avad had prioritized getting the vital structure rebuilt after the battle, and now it stood stronger than ever. It was a little patchwork in places as the newer cuts of stone stood out starkly against their older, more foot-worn neighbors, but it allowed trade and people to pass freely back and forth from the city once more, and that was all that really mattered. The captain paused on one such section of the bridge and leaned heavily against the railing as he stared, unseeing, out at the vast stretch of jungle below. Steam rose off the verdant leaves as the sun began to sink into the horizon, and Erend watched it drift, as if he might divine the answer to all his problems in its idle swirling patterns.

A hand lighted on his shoulder, making Erend start and turn, only to find himself face-to-face with Aloy of all people. He was so taken aback by her unexpected appearance that it took his mind a beat to catch up to what his eyes were seeing. “A-Aloy!” he finally managed to stammer. “Hammer to steel, woman, you almost gave me a heart attack,” Erend said, hand going rest over his heart, which was indeed beating a rapid, frantic tattoo against his ribs.

A soft huff of laughter escaped the huntress as she arched one brow, hands dropping to her hips as she regarded him with concerned green eyes. “I must have called your name three times, Erend,” she said, then, more seriously, asked, “Are you alright? You look… troubled.”

Erend opened his mouth to speak, intending to downplay the conflict playing out within him, but then the huntress narrowed her eyes fractionally and he knew he’d be in for it if he tried. She was too familiar with his ways by now for him to hope to get away with it. So, instead, he heaved a tremendous sigh and turned to lean against the rail of the bridge again. “You could say that,” he mused with a sour smile.

His easy admission of the fact spoke volumes to Aloy of just how bothered Erend really was, even if he did adapt a light tone about it. Concerned, she stepped in closer, resting her hip against the same rail, though rather take in the view with him, she remained focused on his face. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked carefully, brow furrowed as she tried to catch his gaze.

He glanced at her sidelong, then away again as he shifted uncertainly where he stood, suddenly feeling tired as he considered his answer. “It’s a long story,” he eventually answered. “Long and messy with a deeply unhappy ending,” Erend added with a grimace, gloved hands tightening into fists where they rested on the rail.

Truth be told, he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about his past with Aloy, though he knew he was doing her a disservice in thinking it. She’d grown up an outcast, after all, and had seen more than her fair share of trouble while still overcoming obstacles he could only dream of. If anyone would be able to give him an impartial insight on his problem, it’d be her. The question, though, was would she pity him? Think less of him for hesitating to go to his clan’s aide in their time of need? His heart, hers practically since the day they reconnected in Meridian, said no, but his head, so prone to over-thinking, suggested _maybe_. Maybe this would be the last straw that would finally send her packing; give up on their friendship and find a better way to spend her time than with a sad-sap like him…

“I don’t have anywhere to be,” Aloy said, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as he met her eyes with an uncertain gaze. Growing up isolated as she had, Aloy would be the first to admit that she wasn’t always the best at picking up on the little social cues that seemed so obvious to everyone else, but she liked to think she’d gotten better at it since she’d first left the Embrace. Erend was one of the first outlanders she’d ever met and had become one of her closest friends, someone she’d never hesitated to tell anything before, and someone who had gone out of his way to be there for her in her time of need.

Even when that time of need meant fighting an army of cultists and an artificial intelligence set on destroying the world as they knew it.

Aloy could tell her friend needed her now, and she reached out to him without a second thought, a coaxing smile on her lips as she took his arm and gently tugged him away from the railing. “Come on, lets get some food. You can tell me about it over dinner.”

Erend opened his mouth to object, even as his feet betrayed him and followed after her without bothering to consult the rest of him. “I-” he began, then stopped when she lifted her chin in silent challenge for him to argue, and he immediately caved. How was he supposed to tell her no? Better men had tried, and besides… he couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be than at her side on his best day, let alone on his lowest when he felt lost and conflicted. Her warm, steadying presence was a balm to the rawness of his mind, so he followed after her like a moth to flame, a smile finally returning to his face. “Alright. I’m buying, though.”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to order seconds, then,” Aloy teased.

“What, are you on a diet?” Erend asked, smile widening as the woman threw her head back and laughed.

  
  



	2. Never a Goodbye

The pair made tracks to their favorite eatery in one of the smaller city squares just off the spice market and claimed a table for themselves near the fountain. The place was busy, but Erend’s position as Captain of the Vanguard seemed to be enough to ward off any strangers looking to share a table; that or it was the dagger sharp looks Aloy kept shooting at anyone who wasn’t an employee that strayed too close.

Erend caught her at it and Aloy gave him an unapologetic look that made the man laugh. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, smiling in spite of himself.

The huntress only shrugged as she waved a passing server down. They placed their orders and the woman turned her attention back to her friend once more, a canny expression on her face. “You say that, but if I don’t, you won’t talk.”

Erend’s brows shot up and he laughed, “Funny, most of the time people complain they can’t get me to shut up.”

“Well, they’re not wrong,” Aloy teased and he feigned an offended gasp. “The trouble is getting you to talk about what you’re avoiding,” she added, almost chiding as she stared him down from her place across the table.

The captain huffed and grinned, ducking his head a little in silent admission that he’d been caught before glancing up to meet Aloy’s gaze again. In the low light of the lanterns that flickered overhead, her eyes appeared almost honey-gold, and were all too easy to lose himself in. The changeling nature of their color was nothing new to Erend, who had spent more time studying their subtle shifts in hue than he was entirely comfortable admitting, but never failed to entrance him all the same. Green by daylight, gold by fire’s glow, and, when the light was just right, a blue not unlike his own… the man had admired them all, and knew he always would.

Their food arrived, and while Erend hadn’t been planning on drinking ale that evening after the day he’d had, he felt confident enough in his self control while in Aloy’s company to indulge in a pint or two without feeling tempted to more. His friend’s sharp wit was hard enough to keep up with while sober, let alone halfway through a barrel of scrappersap, and he could tell she wasn’t going to let him off the hook with any of the details of his story tonight.

“Starting at the beginning is generally best,” Aloy prompted him as she picked up her fork and proceeded to dig into the food on her plate, which was piled just as high as his own.

Erend masked a smile by taking a drink of his ale; he always had liked a woman that could eat.

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard,” he mused and picked up his own fork as his friend shot him an arch look across the table.

He did as she asked, though, and started at the beginning.

Aloy had thought she knew Erend well; it generally wasn’t hard to get his opinion on something, after all. As she ate and listened, however, it occurred to the huntress that the evasiveness she had accused him of before their food arrived had been more cleverly employed in the time she’d known him than she had ever realized. Thinking about it, though, she realized that any conversation around his youth had been vague and described in broad strokes that glossed over a great deal of detail unless someone pinned him down to a particular facet. Even then, Erend was a master when it came to deflecting questions about himself onto others. He was always happy to sing his sister’s praises, brag about the Vanguard, or even his tribe in general… but rarely spoke of himself.

As the story unfolded, however, finally spelled out in reluctant detail for the first time, it wasn’t hard to understand why.

Erend’s childhood had been a deeply unhappy one. His mother, Fara, had died when he was only four years old, victim of a fever that had burned through the village like a wildfire and disappeared again just as quickly as it arrived. Erend’s father, Branuf, had been ealdorman up until his recent death, outlived by his daughter by less than a year, and Aloy didn’t have to notice her friend’s white-knuckled grip on his fork to know that there was no love lost there.

“He was a heavy-handed bastard, to be sure,” Erend said with a bitter smile into the depths of his mug. Rather than drinking, though, the man forced himself to take a breath and then a bite of his food instead. He was totally unprepared for Aloy’s next question, however.

“How do you mean?”

He looked up at her, mouth full, and Aloy could tell her question had caught him off guard somehow. She watched as he swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, only to hesitate uncertainly, as if he wasn’t sure how to explain, or if he even should. 

The conflicted look that passed over his features made Aloy’s heart twinge unexpectedly while also inundating her in a poignant sense of ignorance for the first time in awhile. When she’d first left the Embrace and had her eyes opened to so many new places and people and ways of life she’d often felt something similar, but this… this felt more personal somehow. Maybe because its source was clearly something that had caused someone she cared dearly about a great deal of unhappiness.

She hated that feeling.

A soft huff of breath rushed from Erend and he smiled weakly, almost apologetically, which only confused Aloy further. “I mean he hit us, when we didn’t do what he wanted,” he explained quietly, uncomfortable smile lingering as his gaze refused to meet hers, focusing instead on some point past her left ear. He’d stopped eating and didn’t seem inclined to continue, though his anxiety was betrayed by the restless way he twirled his fork with the fingers of his right hand. “Ersa and me both,” he continued, almost rambling now, like he couldn’t stop now that he’d finally gotten the initial confession off his chest. He made a horrible, ragged sort of laughing sound that required every ounce of Aloy’s self control not to flinch at as he continued. “ _Fire and spit_ she pissed him off just by existing,” he mused with a sad, bitter smile, seeming miles away. “All Ersa ever wanted was to be a warrior, but that sort of thing’s not _proper_ for the daughter of an Ealdorman. It was a daughter’s job to get married off in exchange for a better _trade agreement_ with another clan,” Erend explained with a sneer that turned into a vicious smile as he stopped spinning his fork and gripped it tight once more. “Not that she’d have any of it. But any time she opened her mouth to object, to say she wanted to do anything else he’d make her go cut a switch and lay into her with it, so I’d-” Erend finally seemed to catch himself with a start and he tore his gaze from the middle-distance to look Aloy in face again. “Sorry,” he said with a grimace, and his friend could practically see him carefully packing his pain away somewhere she couldn’t see it, clearly ashamed that he’d let her see it at all. “You don’t want to hear all that.”

And she didn’t; she really didn’t. But not because it was shameful, the way Aloy was beginning to suspect Erend thought it was, but because it cut her to the quick thinking of her friend suffering at the hands of his own father like that.

For all that Aloy had grown up an outcast of her own tribe, distrusted or even outright hated by them all for the nature of her birth, she had never once doubted that Rost loved her. Even when she’d most disappointed him, the idea that he might physically strike her in retribution for her misconceived actions had never occurred to the huntress. That Erend had been raised in fear of his own father was heart breaking, and as she felt her friend begin to withdraw into himself once more, she reached out and placed her hand over his, stilling its restless fiddling with his fork and drawing his gaze back to hers.

“You’d what?” she prompted, voice gentle but emphatic.

Caught off guard yet again, Erend blinked, then swallowed thickly as he stared at the woman, momentarily at a loss until, finally, he said, “Try and distract him before she got back with the switch.” Mouth suddenly dry as the mesa in summer, Erend took a long draw of his ale before continuing. “Start an argument; piss him off so he’d take it out on me instead. Maybe tire himself out so by the time Ersa got back he uh… he wouldn’t lay into her quite so hard.”

He didn’t mention that absent a switch, Branuf had generally resorted to his belt when it came to disciplining his son. He’d horrified his friend enough.

“Erend,” Aloy said, sounding pained, uncertain of what else she possibly _could_ say. It wasn’t often the woman felt completely out of her depth, but this was one of those times, and she’d never hated the feeling more.

The vanguardsman took a breath and put down his fork, then turned his hand over so he could give hers a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “It was a long time ago.” A moment of heavy silence passed between them, and Erend could practically see the internal debate playing out behind Aloy’s eyes, and he wondered what she would do. In the end, the woman sighed and gave his hand a small squeeze in turn before withdrawing it back to her side of the table, a sympathetic smile on her face as she decided not to press him for more. Relieved, Erend managed a weak half-smile before continuing his story. “Anyways, if there’s anything you could say about me and Ersa, it’s that we were both pig-headed as the day is long, even as kids. Dear old dad never gave me any choice about becoming a warrior; family tradition and all that,” he explained with a sneer. “But I put it to good use, at least, taught Ersa everything he taught _me_ in secret anytime we could get an hour away.”

Aloy smiled. “That was really kind of you, Erend.”

The man shrugged off the compliment with a huff. “Just making the best of a bad situation. What else was I supposed to do when I was being given everything she ever wanted?”

There was, the huntress thought, a great many things Erend could have done instead, including keep his head down and allow his sister to take her undeserved lashings for the sake of saving his own skin… but he hadn’t. And as if that hadn’t been enough, he’d gone out of his way to give her what she wanted most as best he could, though Aloy was certain they hadn’t managed that without being caught and punished more than a few times over the years. She didn’t say this aloud, knowing her friend would only argue, but she smiled, and it was enough to make Erend flush with embarrassment and avert his eyes as he hurriedly continued his story.

“Anyways, it wasn’t long before Ersa was a better fighter than I’ll probably ever be,” he mused as he picked at his food. “And on her eighteenth birthday, when my father was ready to marry her off, she shaved her head and officially became a warrior.” Erend’s smile made a brief reappearance, full of pride and sorrow both as he recalled the day. “Steel to my soul, Aloy, I thought the old man was going to bust a gasket when she walked into the great hall without a hair left on her head and sat down with the warriors,” he said and laughed.

Aloy grinned, relieved to see the man regaining some semblance of his usual self. “You must have been proud of her,” she said, heart warmed by his obvious pride in his sister.

“Damn right I was,” Erend said and sighed. “Old bastard hated what she’d done, screamed at her about it for the better part of an hour, but he couldn’t lay a hand on her after that,” he explained, seeming darkly pleased by the fact, which Aloy couldn’t fault him for in the least. Quite the opposite, really. “She’d’ve had the right by law to hit him back if he had.”

“Shame he didn’t try,” Aloy mused without thinking, then grimaced internally, thinking she might have overstepped.

Luckily, the same thought seemed to have occurred to Erend more than once over the years, and he only nodded his agreement. “He mostly ignored her after that,” he continued after a moment, only to hesitate again.

“And then she was taken in the raids?” Aloy hazarded. She had at least a passing familiarity with this part of the story, at least. He’d told her the first day they met.

Erend had always been so very proud of Ersa. Watching him now, Aloy wondered if his sister had realized just how lucky she was to have his devotion. Surely she had? After all they’d been through, and everything they’d experienced after leaving the Claim, surely she had been able to recognize just how incredible her brother was, even if Erend seemed blind to it himself. The huntress suspected Ersa had; she’d never officially met the other woman, but she’d been witness to Ersa’s dying words and they’d mostly been concerned for her brother.

Aloy had to convince herself of that fact, or else she didn’t think she’d be able to stomach the envy threatening to bloom behind her breast bone.

The sensation was a startling one, and was immediately accompanied by a gut twisting guilt at having been even briefly overcome by such an ugly emotion; at the expense of a dead woman no less. Ersa had died rather than betray Erend and Avad; her memory didn’t deserve to be despoiled with Aloy’s wishing for something that could only be earned.

And Erend’s devotion _could_ be earned; she was certain of that. Avad had it, after all, and the Sun-king certainly hadn’t had the benefit of having been raised with the other man, and Aloy thought that, maybe, just maybe, _she_ had started to earn it herself. Erend had come to her aid without question in her final confrontation with Hades, after all, despite her not having been able to help him rescue his sister in the end. She continued to have his friendship to this day, and even now, he was opening up to her about things she suspected he rarely discussed with anyone. That she wanted _more_ made the woman feel suddenly greedy.

And yet…

“Yeah,” Erend said, pulling Aloy from her thoughts and back to the present as she carefully packed her feelings away and focused on what was important. Her friend, his grief, and whatever new problem these old memories had brought to his doorstep today. “We were fighting on different fronts when it happened. They came at us out of the blue in a pincer maneuver and…” the captain gestured vaguely and Aloy nodded her understanding. “Anyways, once it was all said and done and I realized what’d happened, I tried to rally our warriors to go after the raiders, get Ersa and the others _back_ ,” Erend’s expression darkened into a scowl at the memory and it seemed to take a great deal of effort for him to finally grind out, “But my father refused. Said we didn’t have the manpower to spare for the sake of a few warriors.” He looked ready to hit something, and remembering that sense of futile rage all too well from her hunt for Helis after Rost’s death, Aloy pushed her friend’s half-empty mug towards him.

She wasn’t normally the type to encourage drinking to help cope with overpowering emotions, but even she realized it was the better option sometimes, when not taken to excess.

It seemed to help, regardless. Erend finished off the rest of the ale in one go and forced himself to take a breath, which gave him what he needed to rein in his temper. 

“The truth is,” he explained, bitter now, rather than furious, “He was glad she was gone. Of course he wasn’t going to spare resources to go after her, even if that meant losing the others that were taken with her.”

“But she escaped and made it back in spite of him.”

“No,” he said, bitterness fading as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, confusing Aloy. “I realized I wasn’t the only one pissed at my old man after the raid, so I organized the others and we cut ties with the clan to launch our own damn rescue mission against his direct orders.”

“Really?” Aloy asked, surprised. It was the first time she’d heard this part of the story, though considering it mostly concerned Erend’s own actions and he rarely liked to do those any justice, she supposed she shouldn’t have been. Aloy had known that he and Ersa were freebooters before joining Avad’s cause, but she’d assumed the pair of them had left home under less extreme circumstances.

The fact that Erend had willingly made himself outcast to rescue his sister was news to her, and only deepened her respect for her friend. The first day they’d met he had commented that the Nora tradition of shunning seemed cruel, and yet here he was, more similar to her than she had ever realized. Sure, he was only cut off from his family, not his entire tribe, but still…

“Don’t be too impressed,” Erend told her with a huff of amusement. “We tracked Ersa all the way to Meridian, but in the time it took us to do recon and come up with half a plan, she’d already impressed the mad king, befriended a prince, and convinced him to help her escape the city all on her own.” He laughed at the memory and Aloy grinned, amused by the mental picture he painted. She had no doubt he’d over-simplified his own efforts in trying to figure out how to rescue his sister, but she let it go, knowing they had yet to come to the real root of his problem. “Anyways, we were there to meet her at least, so that’s something.”

“More than something,” Aloy insisted. “I’m sure it meant the world to Ersa, finding you there waiting for her; knowing she wasn’t alone after all.”

Erend went quiet for a moment, lips parted to object, to downplay his own involvement yet again, but the soft smile that lit his friend’s amber eyes rendered him temporarily speechless and unable to do so. In that moment, at least, he didn’t have it in him to argue, knowing that it would likely make her frown, and he’d done more than enough of that for one evening.

Besides, he knew she was right. Strong and unbending as Ersa had always been throughout their youth together, she’d cried when she’d seen Erend and the others that had accompanied him from the Claim. Hell, he’d cried too, seeing her in one piece after so many nights spent awake dreading news of her death. So, instead of denying it, he ducked his head a little in acknowledgment of Aloy’s assertion, and was rewarded when her perfectly shaped lips curled just that little bit more at the corners.

In danger of being caught staring, Erend cleared his throat and forced himself to take a bite of his now tepid food, chew, then swallow before continuing. 

“You know the rest of the story from there. We became freebooters, fell in with Dervahl for a bit, left him in the dust, helped Avad overthrow the king-”

He waved a hand vaguely, as though all this were nothing at all and Aloy chuckled, eyes bright as she added, “Brought people together. Fought a death cult. Helped me kill a crazed machine determined to end life as we know it…”

Erend snorted and laughed, nearly choking on another bite of his food. “Pretty sure that was mostly you, oh ‘Anointed One’.”

Aloy pulled a face at the title and he chuckled, suspecting she’d have hit him under other circumstances. Luckily the table still separated them and he hadn’t pissed her off enough to make her jump over it to get at him.

Instead, he was surprised to find her expression had gone curiously intense, her voice emphatic as she insisted, “Seriously though, Erend. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Mouth suddenly quite dry and no ale left to wet it, Erend swallowed hard, but couldn’t bring himself to laugh off the sincerity of her words with her watching him like that; like it was _important_ to her that he understand them. “Well, you know-” he managed after awkwardly clearing his throat. “Any time.” 

She smiled again and it was enough to make him forget just why they were there having dinner in the first place, for a moment, at least. Fire and spit, just being around her made it hard to think sometimes; he looked at her and he wanted…

Wanted all _sorts_ of things, really. From the mundane to the extraordinary, and everything that came in between.

“So, what happened today?” Aloy asked, pulling Erend from his thoughts and reminding him just why they were there.

Right.

The captain grimaced and rubbed one hand absently over the stubble that covered his scalp. It was starting to get a little long, he should probably shave it tomorrow…

“One of my cousins came to visit,” he said with a sigh as he allowed his hand to drop back to the table. “The rest of the family sent him; apparently they want me to come back and take my father’s place as ealdorman.”

Aloy’s eyebrows shot up at his statement, and then snapped right back down into a foreboding frown that Erend found more than a little gratifying. “That’s… bold of them, all things considered.”

A bark of laughter escaped him. “You’re right about that,” Erend said. His expression turned more thoughtful as he picked at his food with his fork, and mused, “Dorund seemed to recognize that, at least.”

“Why ask now, of all times?” Aloy asked curiously, knowing at a glance that there was more to the story. Her friend wouldn’t have been so conflicted if there wasn’t.

Finally giving up on eating, Erend pushed his plate away and pinched the bridge of his nose as he gathered his thoughts and then relayed the entire encounter with his cousin to Aloy, who listened carefully until he was finished, a frown pulling at her lips.

“-So basically, they’re desperate,” he finished with an irritated wave of his hand.

“They must be, if they reached out like this,” Aloy remarked thoughtfully. Realizing how the statement might come across, she looked at Erend and quickly added, “Not that I think you’d be a bad choice of ealdorman.” Her friend looked amused more than anything, but the more Aloy thought about it, the more she knew she was right. “I think you’d make a _great e_ aldorman, actually.” Erend’s look turned skeptical, like he suspected she was winding him up, so the huntress leaned forward and punctuated her statement by jabbing the surface of the table with a finger. “I’m serious, Erend. You’re a great captain, and you’re good with people. The first time we met you’d just calmed a crowd of angry Nora set on mobbing a Carjan sun-priest, for goodness’ sake- you _could_ do this job, if you wanted to, and you could do it well.” Erend opened his mouth to speak, but immediately shut it again when she lifted her finger in silent warning before continuing, “The question is whether or not you _want_ to.”

And that was the kicker, wasn’t it? 

_Did_ he want to go back to Ironwood, help drag his clan back from the brink and try to change them for the better, the way Avad had suggested? His reflexive answer was no, of course. He was happy here in Meridian; he’d finally hit his stride as Captain of the Vanguard, and he was proud of that… even if it was a daily reminder of his sister and the gaping hole she’d left in the fabric of not only his life, but those of the people around him.

“You _are_ considering it,” Aloy said, expression impossible for the man to parse when he looked up at her again.

Erend hesitated and pushed absently at the furrow between his brows with the pad of his thumb before saying, “Avad thinks I should. Says it’s an opportunity to go in and make changes so what happened to me and Ersa never happens again and- oh, I don’t know.” The man groaned and scrubbed absently at his face with both his hands before slumping sideways to lay his head against his arm. He made quite the picture of a defeated man as he looked up at her with big, morose gray eyes and asked, “What do you think?”

To her credit, Aloy didn’t allow his antics to distract her, and gave his question serious consideration, which Erend appreciated. He could always rely on his friend to give an honest opinion on things, and with his own thoughts so muddled, he was glad to be able to get it now.

The huntress tapped her fingers absently against the surface of the table as she thought, then finally took a breath and said, “Avad’s not wrong, but you already knew that,” she pointed out and Erend gave a reluctant nod from where he lay still sprawled across his side of the table. “I can’t tell you whether or not going back and trying to make changes will even work; but I _can_ tell you that it’ll be hard,” she said with a wry smile. “I’ve been trying to get the Nora to open up to outsiders more and accept outcasts back into the tribe since we defeated Hades, and while I think we’re making some progress, it’s like pulling teeth every step of the way.”

Aloy looked so tired at the admission that Erend twisted a little so he could reach out and place his hand over hers in a sign of solidarity that brought a small smile back to her face.

“At the end of the day, Erend, you’re going to have to decide whether or not the effort of trying to bring change to your clan is worth the labor, physical _and_ mental, that it’s going to require.” The captain didn’t answer immediately, though he did sigh and nod. Full of empathy for the difficult decision he faced, Aloy shifted her hand so it rested on top of his again and said, “Just… remember that you don’t _owe_ them this. If you decide to go back, become their ealdorman, then you’ll need to be ready to face the fact that they probably won’t be grateful, and will probably fight you tooth and nail.”

“Helluva sales pitch,” he murmured wryly and Aloy let out a little huff of amusement then squeezed his hand before continuing.

“If you do it, do it for your own sake, or the sake of the people that will come after.”

Erend regarded her quietly for a long minute, seeming to mull over her words, then heaved a huge, aggrieved sigh and pushed himself upright again. “ _Why_ ,” he demanded of no one in particular, “do I have to surround myself with _sensible_ people?” Aloy threw her head back and laughed and the man flashed her a smile, then got to his feet and gave her a hand up in turn. “Come on, lets get out of here, it’s getting late and apparently I’ve got things to do tomorrow.”

Aloy waited while he counted out a few shards for their meal, then followed him away from the restaurant and back into the market. It was getting late, so most of the stalls were already closed, but the heavy scent of spices still hung in the air, making the woman unconsciously take a deep breath and relish their rich variety.

Erend noticed and smiled. “Yeah, I’m going to miss that,” he mused and did the same. “Gotta make sure I put spices on the list of supplies to request,” he mused aloud and Aloy watched him thoughtfully as they walked side-by-side at a leisurely pace through the market.

“So, you’ve made up your mind?” she asked curiously. She wasn’t entirely surprised; her friend was the sort to act decisively once he felt he had all the information, after all. The only reason Erend had been hesitating in the first place, she knew now, was because of his troubled history with his clan.

He looked at her sidelong, one hand absentmindedly stroking his mustache, and rather than answering her question, asked, “You really think I can do it? Be ealdorman, I mean.”

The huntress crooked a brow at him. “I said I did.”

“Yeah, it helps to hear it aloud, though,” Erend acknowledged, then quietly added, “especially from you.”

Aloy’s arch look gentled and she came to a stop along the edge of the canal, forcing him to do the same lest he leave her behind. “I know you, Erend. You can do this,” she said, expression sincere as she reached out and gripped her friend’s shoulder. A smile played across her features as she released him, though, and she added, “You might need to cultivate some extra patience in the process, but I know you can do that too, if you put your mind to it.”

Erend laughed and tried to ignore the frantic pounding of his heart behind his ribs her words had inspired. “Well,” he teased, “if the Anointed One says it, it must be so.”

Faster than a Stalker strike, Aloy punched him hard in the shoulder and Erend twisted away, swearing and laughing as the woman held up her fist to threaten him with another. “Mercy!” he cried nursing his arm with one hand. “I’ll stop, I promise!”

“Damn right,” she grumbled, though judging by her poor attempt at stifling a smile, he hadn’t truly annoyed her.

They started walking again and, no longer burdened by the heavy weight of the decision hanging over his head, Erend said, “Sorry I dumped all that on you tonight.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Aloy reassured him with a smile that did nothing to slow Erend’s heart rate. “You’d do the same for me.”

He nodded, and keen to prove her right, asked, “What have you been up to since you were last here? Wrangling matriarchs and fighting machines?” he asked, then with a sly smile, added, “Or was it fighting matriarchs and wrangling machines?”

Aloy laughed and said, “Something like that. Hard to tell the two apart after awhile, with the exception of Teersa.”

“She did seem like the easiest of them to get along with,” Erend mused, thinking back to the brief meeting he’d had with all three matriarchs back when he’d been playing guard to Irid’s envoy.

It didn’t take much prompting for Aloy to open up further about her efforts among the Nora, which helped Erend begin to wrap his head around just what he was getting himself into in regards to his own clan. At least he wasn’t trying to change his entire tribe, the way Aloy was; not that the Claim didn’t _need_ it, of course. Not everyone there was as controlling as his own father had been, but the staunchly patriarchal views that allowed Branuf to do as he pleased with his children were very much the result of long standing traditions that still dictated the actions of most Oseram clans.

“All-Mother save us both from pig-headed traditionalists,” Aloy mused with a heavy sigh.

“I’ll drink to that,” Erend agreed with a lopsided smile, then nudged her lightly with his shoulder and asked, “What do you have planned next? I’m sure you didn’t come all the way to Meridian just to see little old me.”

Aloy chuckled and nudged him back, “A little bit, actually. Though mostly I was in the area looking for a lead on a specific Old World ruin.”

“Not more trouble already, I hope,” Erend asked, smile falling away, immediately replaced by concern.

“No,” his friend immediately reassured him. “Nothing like that. I’m just…” Aloy hesitated, uncertain for a moment, then finally said, “Looking for a little closure, I think.” Erend opened his mouth to speak, then stopped himself, frowning a little. Seeing it, a soft huff of amusement escaped Aloy and she prompted him, “Go ahead and say it, whatever it is.”

The captain tugged absently at his mustache as he regarded her, then asked, “Are you sure you’re going to find closure in more ruins? Or just more questions?” They were nearing Olin’s house, now Aloy’s since Avad had granted her the property, and their walking pace had slowed to a veritable crawl.

He knew he was biased in asking the question. For all that he was leaving Meridian himself, the idea that Aloy might be venturing far abroad into the great unknown for who knew how long still cut him deep. Who knew when they would find each other again.

Or if they ever would.

Erend shook himself mentally, unwilling to let that morbid thought take hold, though he could feel it lingering at the fringes of his mind like a persistent shadow as Aloy answered his question.

“Normally I’d say the latter, but this time’s different,” the huntress said as they entered the narrow alley that lead to Olin’s front door. “I promise I’ll tell you all about it the next time I see you,” she reassured Erend with a small smile when she saw the way the concern lingered behind his gray eyes, which lit up at the statement.

“You’ll come visit me in Ironwood?” he asked hopefully, then immediately checked himself and added, “I mean, don’t feel _obligated_ , but if you’re passing by…”

“Of course I will,” Aloy said emphatically as it truly hit her for the first time that things would be changing after tonight. The next time she came to Meridian, Erend wouldn’t be here waiting for her with a ready smile and an open invitation to dinner or drinks or anything else that might strike her fancy. It was a painful realization that made the woman’s heart twinge and, despite not usually being the sort, spurred Aloy to suddenly close the distance between them and wrap her arms around her friend in a tight hug.

She’d caught him off guard, she could tell by the way he suddenly tensed at her unexpected touch, but just as she started to worry that maybe she’d crossed a line, Aloy felt Erend relax and fold his arms around her in turn.

“Keep this up and I really am going to think this is a good-bye,” he admitted, voice gone rough with emotion.

Aloy dropped her head to rest on his shoulder to mask the tears that threatened to spring to her eyes. “It’s _not_ ,” she insisted quietly, hands clutching tight at the back of his armor. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, being mashed up against the leather and steel of his breast plate, but the solid, comforting warmth of his arms around her more than made up for it, and left her reluctant to pull away.

She felt his fingers curl into the soft leather of her tunic and his chin brush the crown of her head as he said, “I’m going to hold you to that.”

A soft, teary huff escaped Aloy and she replied, “When have I ever gone back on my word?”

“Never,” he replied, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

Eventually, Aloy released her hold on him and Erend let his arms drop away as he looked down at her with a weak smile. “Safe journey, huntress,” he said.

“Safe journey, Erend Ealdorman,” she replied with a teasing smile and he scoffed. Just as she started towards the door, however, he caught her wrist in his hand, drawing her attention back to him, a silent question in her eyes.

“I-” he began awkwardly, then hesitated, struggling to find the words he was looking for. “That… all that stuff I told you earlier, about when I was a kid-” He paused again, and for once, Aloy found herself unable to read him, until he continued, “Promise me you won’t look at me differently, next time I see you.”

Understanding and sympathy flooded Aloy as he fixed her with desperate gray eyes and she shifted her arm so he held her hand, rather than her wrist. “You’re still you, Erend,” she informed him with a smile. “I just understand you a little better now, is all. That doesn’t change who you are in my eyes.”

Relief flooded through the captain at her words, so strong it nearly buckled his knees. If there was one thing in life he didn’t think he could handle, it was to be an object of pity for the woman he loved. Sympathy was one thing, but pity…

“Thanks, Aloy,” he said, then reluctantly loosed his hold on her. They exchanged one final farewell, and then she shut the door behind her, leaving Erend alone with his thoughts to wander the streets of Meridian until his feet eventually carried him back to his house down by the canals.

It had belonged to him and Ersa, once upon a time, and coming home to find it empty hadn’t gotten any easier since her passing. This evening, however, the house might have been empty, but there was someone waiting for him on the stairs leading up to the front door.

Dorund.

His cousin surged to his feet as Erend approached, nervous and pale looking in the moonlight, and he wondered how long he’d been waiting there.

“Erend,” the other man said, anxiety in every line of him. “I’m sorry to ambush you like this, I-”

The captain held up a hand for quiet and Dorund cut himself off so quickly his teeth clicked.

Silence loomed between the two of them for a long minute as Erend collected his thoughts. “I’ll come back with you,” he said finally, and Dorund physically sagged with relief, so much so he had to clutch at the handrail to keep from sitting down on the stairs. “I’ll be up front with you, though,” Erend warned, drawing the younger man’s attention back to him as he regained his feet. “I plan to make changes in Ironwood. We won’t be going back to the way things were when I left. The elders want me and my resources so bad? They’ll have to take all my ideas, too,” Erend said sternly as he stared his cousin down.

It was, the captain thought, a sign of how truly desperate his clan must be that Dorund capitulated without so much as a moment’s hesitation. “Yes, of course,” he said with an energetic nod. Then again, Erend wouldn’t be at all surprised if the elders back in the village had told his cousin to say whatever was needed to get him to come along. They’d be in for a surprise if they thought for a moment that he’d be bend a knee to them and their patriarchal, out of touch ways, though. He wasn’t the sheltered, if jaded, boy he’d been when he’d left almost five years before.

“Alright then,” Erend said, then asked, “You got someplace to stay?”

“I’m at the inn down by the meat market,” Dorund explained as he came down the steps and approached his cousin.

The captain nodded, then jerked his head in that direction and said, “Get back there then and come back first thing in the morning. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Yes, sir!”


	3. Exodus

“I’ll have to admit,” Avad mused when they broke for dinner amidst an extended discussion of what sort of aid the Sundom would be able to send with the soon-to-be former Captain of the Vanguard. “I expected you to take at least another day or two mulling it over.”

Erend snorted. “I probably would have, but I got some help.” The king arched a brow in silent question, and his friend clarified, “Aloy found me and helped me get my head on straight.”

“Ah,” Avad replied, smiling into his cup of wine as he settled back in his seat. “I’ll have to remember to thank her for that later.” He chuckled then, and added, “Always showing up exactly when she’s needed most, our dear huntress.”

A huff of laughter escaped Erend and he raked one hand absently through his mohawk as he admitted, “It is pretty damn impressive. That’s her in a nutshell, though.”

Avad nodded his agreement, smile turning wistful as he quietly admitted, “I asked her to stay, once.”

Erend glanced up at his friend sharply, though with his gaze locked on the middle distance, the king didn’t notice. “Oh?” the captain asked nonchalantly, pulse quickening inexplicably as he waited for Avad to continue.

The other man sighed, smile gone rueful as he shook his head and turned his attention back to Erend. “Shot me down outright,” he mused with a soft huff. “Very politely, of course. She could see I was still… grieving for Ersa,” he admitted, brow furrowing as he let his eyes drop from his friend’s face to the floor. “Grieving and grasping at anything remotely familiar to fill the void.” Erend was quiet and Avad forced himself to meet his gaze once more. “It’s not a moment I’m proud of,” he said softly.

Erend wasn’t sure what to say as the silence hung between them. He’d long suspected that Avad and his sister had been involved (hell, half of Meridian had too), but they’d never spoken on the matter. Erend had never really considered it his business what his sister and the king got up to, and after her death, well… it’d hardly seemed to matter. They’d both mourned her in their own way since then, but the captain could hardly judge his friend for latching onto Aloy in a moment of weakness.

Hadn’t he done the same, after all?

He’d said himself the first day they met that Aloy had a lot in common with his sister, and after getting to know the huntress better, that still held true. Neither of them was the sort to back down from a challenge or suffer fools lightly, which made their willingness to put up with his antics one of the great mysteries of the universe, as far as Erend was concerned. Both women were brilliant and kind, though the man had to admit that Aloy was less prickly than Ersa could be, and more inclined to bending over backwards to help a stranger in need.

Hell, she’d barely even known _him_ and Aloy had gone out of her way to help him hunt down Ersa’s killers after only a token resistance. Of course, she’d earned his undying loyalty by the end of it all. They may not have been able to save his sister’s life, but Ersa had died free and they’d been able to say goodbye one last time, which was something Erend would always be grateful for.

One day… one day he might even find the right words to thank Aloy for all she’d done.

“Lucky for us, she’s not the sort to judge a couple of well meaning fools,” Erend mused quietly.

The comment startled a laugh from Avad and the tension bled out of him as his friend watched. The king had been waiting for him to blow up for his admission, Erend realized belatedly. Instead, the captain just chuckled then forced his back straight into a stretch that made his spine pop.

“Back to work?” Erend suggested.

A small smile played across Avad’s features and he said, “At this rate I’m going to think you _want_ to leave me here alone.”

“You’re the one who got tired of looking at my ugly mug.”

The king flashed his friend a smile and said, “Perhaps, but I shall still miss your company all the same.”

The other man’s tone was teasing, but Erend could tell by the warmth of his smile that the words were genuine, which made the captain’s heart give a pang. Avad wasn’t like any other friend he’d ever had; came from being a king, he supposed. But he was just that; a dear friend that had changed Erend’s life irrevocably from the first moment their paths crossed… and he was going to miss him dearly when he was gone.

“Yeah,” Erend said, clearing his throat sharply when it went unexpectedly tight. “Me too.”

The heartfelt admission hung between the two of them for a quiet moment, then Erend cleared his throat again and said, “So, about the architects I’m going to need.”

“Archi _tect_ ,” Avad countered. “I told you before I can’t spare more than the one.”

“Oh come on,” Erend blustered as the pair of them settled quickly back into this less emotional line of discourse with no small amount of relief. “What am I supposed to do with _one_ architect when I’ve apparently got half a damn village to rebuild?”

In the end, the ealdorman-to-be did accept the loan of a single royal architect, though managed to wrangle extra supplies from the king in exchange. Avad was, of course, more than generous, but after a morning spent with his cousin getting a more detailed accounting of just what kind of shape Ironwood was in, Erend was determined not to leave Meridian without everything he needed to put things right.

If he agreed to do a job, after all, he damn well did it _right_.

* * *

Two and a half weeks flew by in what seemed a blink to Erend, and before he knew it, he was standing in the middle of his mostly empty house feeling curiously lost and completely alone.

He’d spent the last couple of days tearing through the place, sorting through necessities he’d be bringing with him while throwing the rest into either a donate pile, or the trash heap. Luckily, he hadn’t been forced to do it alone; several members of the Vanguard had come by in their off time to lend their captain a hand, which he appreciated. The biggest struggle of all, however, had been going through the contents of Ersa’s room, which was something no one else had quite dared to help with; not that he would have accepted if they did.

He’d mostly left his sister’s things untouched after her death, closed the door and only opened it on those particularly low nights when the small comfort the ghost of her presence offered had outweighed the pain her obvious absence inflicted on his heart.

Getting rid of anything at all had been hard, but after an hour standing frozen with indecision in the center of the dust covered space that had once belonged to his sister, Erend had managed to empty the dresser of her clothes. He certainly didn’t need them, and Ersa’s outlook on the sartorial arts had always been purely practical, so they held no lingering importance beyond having once belonged to her. Things got easier from there, and eventually Erend was able to whittle it down to a few key items; he’d already been wearing her helmet since he found it at the battleground Aloy had lead him to, and her war hammer was long since lost, but he carefully boxed up the rest of her armor. He had no practical use for it, but the man also couldn’t bring himself to give it away casually, either, so he brought it with him. A few keepsakes Ersa had collected over the years were carefully packed into another box, but most important of all was the journal he found tucked into one of the drawers of his sister’s desk.

He’d known she kept one, but its existence had slipped his mind after everything else. Standing there surrounded by all Ersa’s earthly belongings, though, Erend hadn’t been able to bring himself to open it; he wasn’t sure he had the strength to stand reading the record of all her hopes and dreams.

The man knew the right answer was probably to burn the thing; these were all of Ersa’s most private thoughts, after all, ones she’d likely never even shared with _him_. Erend couldn’t bring himself to do it, though; it felt too much like watching her die all over again. Instead, he wrapped it carefully in a cloth and tucked it in among the other keepsakes, the most precious item of all that he took from the house by the time he was done packing and cleaning.

Erend put Dorund in charge of organizing the supplies as they arrived at the warehouse Avad had ordered set aside for their use until they left. The former captain was surprised at how well he handled the task until his cousin primly informed him that he was, in fact, a scribe, and had often been left in charge of managing the village’s supplies and haggling with passing traders. Erend had left him to it after that, only checking in occasionally to be sure that Dorund didn’t need any assistance.

In the meantime, Erend went about the task of gathering the less obvious, but just as essential, commodity Ironwood would need to get back on its feet:

People.

No amount of rebuilding would help the village if they didn’t have the people to protect and maintain it, after all. Normally an Oseram village, especially a smaller one like Ironwood, was made up primarily of one or two extended families, but if it was going to survive, his clan was going to have to learn to play nice with outsiders. From what Dorund told him, there simply weren’t enough of them left to maintain a functioning community, and those that _were_ left skewed either very old or very young. The few still in their prime were mostly women who had never been permitted to fight, or men who had sustained serious injury.

He went to the Oseram freebooters of Meridian first. Life in the Sundom had afforded many of them a better, freer life, especially for those of the female persuasion, but the hot climes and the lingering tension with the Carja didn’t sit well with all of them. Erend was convinced that an opportunity to go back to the Claim to live under less… controlling rule than what they had initially escaped would appeal to a lot of them.

And he was right. More right than he’d ever hoped he would be as he watched warrior after artisan after farmer sign up to join the caravan to Ironwood. Still more promised to come later, after setting their business affairs in order, and Erend assured them they’d still be welcomed.

Next he went to the Carja themselves, and while he had less success there than among his own people, Erend attracted more than he’d anticipated. If there was one thing the man would admit he was good at, he supposed, it was cajoling people around to his way of thinking. He knew his family back in Ironwood would be less than pleased to see ‘foreigners’ arriving with their new ealdorman, but Erend found himself past caring. The Carja were amazing builders, so the man was more than a little pleased when a few stonemasons agreed to join, as well as several different kinds of artisan. Competition was stiff in Meridian, so the opportunity to get in at the proverbial ground floor somewhere new with minimal up front investment on their part was a temptation they proved unable to pass up.

Even if it _did_ mean moving all the way to the Claim.

The morning of their departure found Erend overseeing the loading of the carts at dawn in front of the warehouse they’d commandeered and nursing a headache. Avad had thrown a banquet the night before in honor of his departure, and to celebrate the promotion of Erend’s former Lieutenant, Caldert, to the position of Captain of the Vanguard. Erend had picked his successor himself, certain that the man’s steady nature and keen mind would serve Avad well in the years to come. Perhaps he should have toasted him a little less over dinner, though.

“I’ve often wondered if starting an auspicious undertaking with a hangover is an actual Oseram tradition, or a simple matter of statistics,” a familiar voice mused from behind Erend.

He turned sharply in surprise, and was shocked to see Avad himself standing there, dressed as a simple merchant and looking more than a little smug. “Your M-” Erend began, then caught himself before he could finish his friend’s title as he glanced around and noticed that the king was completely unattended. “What are you doing here?” he hissed, then planted a hand in the middle of the other man’s back and used it to push him firmly around one of the already filled carts, away from prying eyes.

“I came to say goodbye,” Avad said, seeming amused by his friend’s antics. “Looking around like that will only draw attention, you know.”

Erend scowled at the king, but in recognition of his point, he stopped glancing furtively around for some unseen threat or sign that Avad had been followed. “Where are your _guards_ ,” he demanded, voice low but emphatic. “Are you trying to get yourself assassinated?!”

Avad rolled his eyes. “No one’s going to recognize me as long as you don’t attract attention with all your clucking.”

“I am _not_ -” Erend began, then stopped and forced himself to take a breath as his friend looked on with some amusement. “I thought your goodbye was that party last night,” he said eventually, hands settling on his hips.

“That was the _King’s_ goodbye to a loyal subject,” Avad said with an airy wave of a hand. “ _This_ is a goodbye between friends,” he continued with a warm smile.

Erend’s annoyance and concern for his king bled away and he snorted, admittedly touched by the gesture, risky for the man though it was. “Thanks,” he said, “That uh… that does mean a lot,” Erend admitted and was rewarded with a wider smile from his friend.

“I know I already said it,” Avad remarked after a moment as he reached out and clasped the other man’s shoulder. “But I _am_ going to miss you, Erend.”

“Of course you are,” Erend joked in a poor attempt to mask how affected he was. “Who _wouldn’t_ miss all this?” he asked and gestured at himself, making Avad laugh.

Rather than reply immediately, the king surprised Erend by pulling him into a tight hug. “Take care of yourself, my friend,” Avad said with quiet feeling. “And _try_ to stay out of trouble.”

Though he’d been taken off guard by the gesture, Erend quickly returned it, then huffed and pushed his friend out to arm’s length, gloved hands resting on the king’s shoulders. “Like you’re one to talk to _me_ about getting in trouble,” he scoffed, though immediately broke into a grin as Avad chuckled. Erend regarded his friend for a moment, and it hit him again that this might very well be the last time he saw Avad for a very long time (he refused to think the word ‘ever’). Figuring it was better now than never, the man took a breath to steel himself, then said, “Look, it’s probably presumptuous as hell of me to say this to a king,” Avad’s brows shot up at this statement, clearly curious as to where it was leading. “- let alone one that’s supposedly the living incarnation of a god,” here the king rolled his eyes again as he caught Erend’s teasing, but he didn’t pull away when he saw his friend’s expression become serious once more. “But you’re like the brother I never had, Avad.”

His friend’s eyes went wide at the admission. “Erend,” Avad said, but before he could continue, the other man hastily cleared his throat and dropped his hands from the king’s shoulders.

“I know you already lost your older brother, and hearing that from someone like me probably doesn’t mean much-”

“Erend,” Avad cut him off, voice pained in spite of the smile on his face. “Erend that means _everything_ coming from someone like you,” he insisted as he tugged the other man in for another hug. “You have been with me through some of my very darkest hours, and helped me in more ways than I could ever hope to list,” he said, then pulled away again to regard the other man with earnest brown eyes. “It is an _honor_ to call you brother.”

“I, uh-” Erend stammered through a shuddering breath and a weak laugh as he fought back unexpected tears. “Thanks,” he managed to say eventually. Scraping together what was left of his emotional control, Erend continued, “If you ever need anything, if anything… _happens_ , just send word and I’ll be there, no matter what.”

“Thank you,” Avad said, and Erend didn’t think he was imagining the tremor in the other man’s voice, well practiced at concealing his emotions though he was. “You must do the same,” he added with a chiding shake of a finger, then smiled and said, “Though you needn’t wait until an emergency to write. I expect to hear from you soon.”

“Well, if it’ll keep you from sneaking out on your own to find out what I’m up to in person,” Erend said with a snort, “Then I’ll try.”

With that promise extracted, the pair made their final farewells, and Erend watched Avad disappear among the rapidly growing crowd of people going about their early morning business as the markets opened and people from outside the gates began to flood into the city. Meridian was a funny sort of place, full of color and noise and the heady scent of spices… a place where, completely by chance, you might brush shoulders with a king.

Erend was going to miss it.

The caravan was ready to roll out by midmorning a few hours later, a long train of people and wagons laden not only with all their earthly possessions, but everything they would need to rebuild a village when they got to their destination. Erend lingered at the main gate to watch the procession pass while Dorund remained at the head, leading the way for the time being. Even with his heavy war hammer strapped to his back, the man felt _exposed_ as he looked out over all the people who were now under his command; in such a long train they were terribly exposed to potential bandit or machine attacks. He did take some comfort in the two dozen soldiers and half dozen hunters Avad had sent with them, at least, not to mention there were more than a few fighters among the caravan members themselves.

Still, it was a long ways to Ironwood, and Erend had a feeling he was going to be too on edge to get much in the way of a good nights sleep until they finally passed through the gates of their destination.

Probably not even then, if he was being honest.

“We haven’t even made it across the bridge yet, you’re not allowed to look _tired_.”

Erend jolted, opening eyes he hadn’t properly realized he’d closed as he pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to ward off the lingering dregs of his hangover and the anxious thoughts that plagued him. He turned to look behind him and was greeted by the welcome sight of Gelda standing there with a nonplussed look on her round face, wearing minimal armor with a pack slung across her back.

“Sergeant,” Erend said, breaking into a wide smile, happier than he had words to express that she had apparently decided to take him up on his offer to move back to Ironwood. Gelda had, of course, been one of the first people he had asked, but after telling him she’d consider it, he hadn’t heard anymore from the woman on the matter, and so he’d been forced to resign himself to the idea of going without her. He’d tried to track her down over the last several days, if only to say goodbye, but had always seemed to have just missed her, making the man wonder if she’d been actively avoiding him.

“Not your sergeant, sir,” she corrected him as the last cart trundled past and they both fell into step behind it.

Erend snorted and countered, “Then I’m not your ‘sir’.”

His friend cast him an arch look with just a hint of an eye roll. “You may not be my captain anymore, but you _are_ my ealdorman. That makes you a ‘sir’ to everyone in the Claim whether you like it or not, so you’d better get used to it.”

Erend opened his mouth to object, but stopped and closed it again as he recognized that she was right. Technically he’d been an ealdorman since the moment he accepted Dorund’s offer two and a half weeks before, but it was only now, as they crossed the threshold from Meridian into the wider world, that he really felt the title settle over him like a weight across his shoulders.

He wasn’t anyone’s captain anymore.

It was a melancholy sort of thought that Erend quickly shelved in favor of focusing on the much happier one that was Gelda’s decision to return with him to Ironwood. He knew her memories of the place weren’t much better than his own, so he understood the weight of the choice she’d made and appreciated it more than he could really say. He tried anyways, though.

“I’m glad you decided to come,” Erend said. “Having someone I know I can trust along… it means a lot.”

Gelda glanced at him sidelong as they walked down the road, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she shifted her gaze to the caravan they followed then said, “Yeah, well… _someone_ has to step up and keep you in line while that huntress of yours is away.”

Erend barked out a laugh as a blush threatened to overcome his features at her implication. “She’s not _my_ huntress by any stretch of the imagination,” he mused with an amused, if wistful, huff.

Gelda shot him a skeptical look, and said, “Whatever you say, Erend.” After a moment of quiet, though, she added, “Ersa would have liked her,” in a thoughtful, faraway tone.

“Yeah,” the ealdorman agreed quietly, though neither of them could bring themselves to speak more on the matter.

As they walked, Erend turned and regarded the slowly retreating bulk of Meridian behind them with a pensive frown. You could see the city for miles on a clear day like today, and it’d be some time before they left it behind entirely, but looking at it now, the former captain felt almost as though he’d stepped out from under a shadow.

His sister’s maybe.

Letting her take the lead as they’d grown and then finally left the Claim hadn’t been a _bad_ thing, per say, but Erend could see now, as he started this strange new chapter of his life, that he’d lingered in her shadow longer than he should have. It’d been easy, following in her footsteps rather than striking out on his own, especially since he’d been able to tell himself that she’d needed him at her side to support her. It wasn’t entirely untrue, of course, Ersa _had_ needed him, and looking back he could see that having him there to back her up had given his sister the confidence to take greater risks over the years than she might have otherwise.

But after the liberation and the formation of the Vanguard, Erend had settled into a comfortable rut he hadn’t been able to recognize until life had come along to yank the rug right out from under him and everything had changed forever. Even after his sister’s murder and fighting a second war he’d tried to cling to what had once been ‘normal’ by taking over as captain of the Vanguard, despite never truly feeling like it was his to command, no matter how good at it he’d become.

Lucky for him, Erend thought, he had very patient friends who weren’t afraid to call him out when he was avoiding the obvious. Maybe someday he’d get to a point where he wouldn’t need them to anymore (he hoped he would, for their sake), but until then, he was glad they were looking out for him.

Becoming ealdorman and rebuilding Ironwood was going to test Erend in ways he never had been before, he knew, but he also knew he owed it to the people he cared about to become the kind of man who could get the job done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Make sure to drop a comment and let me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from you guys!


	4. The Tides of Change

Three days into the journey, Erend spent the better part of a night staring up at the stars and wondering how long it’d take everyone to notice he was gone if he just got up and walked away right then and there. It was a tempting thought, and possibly the only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that he’d never be able to look Avad or Aloy in the eye again if he tucked tail and ran before even giving things an honest try. Just imagining Aloy’s lovely face overcome with a frown of disappointment, changeling eyes full of disdain at his cowardice was enough to send a shudder down the length of the man and kill the inclination before it fully formed. And what about Avad? He’d seemed so sincere saying he was happy to count Erend as a brother before he had left Meridian; there was no way _that_ would hold true if he gave up before he even started.

His friends were going through the same struggle, after all. He knew all too well how hard Avad worked every day to keep the entire Sundom from coming apart at the seams and collapsing into civil war again while also trying to make it more hospitable to outsiders. And Aloy… when she wasn’t out saving the literal world from who knew what kind of unseen problems beyond mortal ken, she was helping the Nora rebuild and trying to make them a less violently insular community.

One clan, one village.

It was rapidly becoming a mantra for Erend that he repeated on a loop any time he felt like bolting for the hills. His friends both had so much on their plates, he could handle one clan. He could handle one village. So _they_ seemed to think, anyways, and Erend trusted them both with his life, so it seemed disingenuous not to trust their opinions in turn.

It wasn’t easy, though, and it was a testament to not only his high opinion of Aloy and Avad, but his deep and abiding affection for them that Erend kept putting one foot in front of the other as the caravan steadily made its way North. Especially when the wind turned unexpectedly one day a week in, and the man caught the familiar scent of the Claim on the breeze. Spruce and fresh water with just a hint of smoke from distant charcoal stacks combined to strike Erend an almost physical blow. It sent him spiraling five years into the past to when he was a younger, more jaded man, fit to burn up from inside out with the heat of his own fury as he set off on what seemed a hopeless mission to rescue his sister.

“Steel to my soul, I’d forgotten the _smell_ of it,” Gelda muttered as she came to a stop beside him along the path and turned her nose to the air, same way he had.

Erend looked at her and noted how pale his friend seemed, jaw tight and lips pressed into a thin line. The sight was enough to remind him that he wasn’t the only one affected by this trip, and helped him pull back a little so he could force himself to take a calming breath of hauntingly familiar air. The ealdorman straightened his shoulders and admitted, “Yeah. Don’t think I ever even realized it _had_ one until now.” Erend nudged her lightly with an elbow and said, “Better than the maizelands in spring, at least.”

A sharp laugh escaped his friend, and it seemed enough to help ease her introspective mood as well. “Most things smell better than literal shit, Erend,” she scoffed and he grinned.

“Including here, apparently, so that’s something,” he said and nudged her again before he started walking once more, setting a quick pace so he could catch up with the head of the caravan.

_I think you’d make a **great** Ealdorman, actually. _

Aloy’s words that night over dinner flitted across the surface of his mind as he walked, and once again, he found himself wondering if they could possibly be true. Erend didn’t doubt that Aloy believed what she’d said, but at the end of the day it was all down to him actually being able to live up to what she believed he was capable of, wasn’t it?

_You’re a great captain, and you’re good with people._

Well, he could generally buy into the latter assertion, at least. Realizing Gelda was struggling with conflicting emotions about their return to Ironwood had opened Erend’s eyes to the fact that he’d been slipping in that department of late, however. Consumed with his own concerns and baggage, the man had turned his attention inward in all but the most practical ways required to lead the caravan. Looking around at his fellow travelers with fresh eyes now as he walked, the ealdorman realized that _most_ of them seemed troubled or withdrawn to some extent, something he should have recognized from the get-go.

Something Erend _would_ have recognized from the get-go if he hadn’t been so eaten up by his own anxieties instead of paying attention and doing his job.

Coming to a decision, the ealdorman forced himself to take another deep breath and push aside his own hang-ups about returning home in favor of addressing… well, his people’s. Gelda was the only one among their number who originally hailed from Ironwood, but all the Oseram had left the Claim at some point in their life (with the exception of a few very young children), and many had done so to flee some form of inequality or lack of opportunity.

The women in particular.

He’d known that going in, of course, but it was different seeing their concerns written so plainly on their features as they grew closer to the Sundom’s border with the Claim. Erend knew there wasn’t much he could say to directly assuage their concerns; in the end, it’d be down to him _showing_ that things could be different once they arrived at their destination. In the meantime, however, he resolved to be more involved with them, less distracted by his own problems. Dwelling on them was doing him no good when there was no direct action he could take to put his own mind at ease regarding his inevitable reunion with his clan, anyways.

So he spent less time at the front or the back of the caravan from then out, and more in the midst of it, getting to know the people who’d be shouldering the future of his village. Not just the Oseram either, but the Carja as well; important considering they were taking possibly even more of a leap than their new comrades. Names, histories, relationships… there was a lot to learn but Erend had always been a dab hand at people, having long found that a listening ear and a sense of interest was all most needed to open up about themselves. He learned a lot about these people who had entrusted their future to him, and in hearing about their troubles, as well as their hopes, Erend found his own anxiety about the future waning bit by bit.

There was a lot to do, and it would be an uphill struggle against the foreboding mountains of Oseram tradition, but the better he got to know these people the more determined Erend became to make things work. It was a heavy load to shoulder, but it also made it clearer than ever just how important the task really was; not just for his sake, but theirs as well.

Nearly a week later, the party stopped to camp in the foothills of the mountains that loomed over the pass to Ironwood. The village sat nestled, as yet still out of sight, in one of the high valleys among the distant peaks, but to Erend it seemed a heavy presence that pulled at the fabric of the world around it.

As the ealdorman’s gaze traced distractedly over the familiar geography, Dorund approached and said, “We’re almost there,” with an air of anticipation. “Another two days, if everything goes well.”

He looked at his cousin, clearly expecting a similar level of excitement, but found none. Erend’s gray eyes were cold and steely as they lingered on the mountains, teeth grit tight against the nauseous churning of his stomach that had started up the moment he’d recognized them. He hadn’t been this far North since he’d first left the Claim years before, and though they’d technically passed the Carja border several days ago, this made things feel so much more… real.

“I’m sorry,” Dorund said quietly when Erend made no reply, and the ealdorman looked at him. “I know this is hardly a happy homecoming for you…”

Erend sighed, then managed a smile for his cousin’s sake as he reached out and grasped his shoulder. “It’s okay for you to look forward to finally getting home,” he remarked with a soft huff of amusement, then released his hold on Dorund and said, “I’m sure you’re looking forward to seeing your wife again, anyways.”

Dorund flushed at the mention of his new bride, Carila, and Erend’s smile widened into something more genuine. The young couple had only been married for a few months before his cousin had been sent off on his quest to Meridian, and even the long time bachelor could recognize how painful that would be for a pair of newlyweds.

He was all too familiar with pining, after all…

“I am dreading it,” Erend admitted candidly, then quickly continued, “but, I don’t know; it’ll be good to finally be able to get to work.”

Dorund’s expression became rueful as he turned his gaze to the distant mountains and said, “Well, there’s plenty to be done. Treasure this quiet while you can.”

* * *

When they topped the ridge overlooking the valley Ironwood occupied a few days later, Erend realized that his cousin had not been speaking lightly. Even at a distance, visible only thanks to the lower elevation of the village, the new ealdorman could see that the damage was extensive. At his side as she often was, Gelda swore quietly under her breath and Erend hummed in agreement, but refused to say more on the matter until he’d seen the village close up. Instead, he waved the caravan on and lead the way down the incline and into the dark forest that was its namesake.

Most Oseram villages were surrounded by vast, clearcut areas as the people within claimed the materials necessary to not only build their homes, but create the charcoal they used to power their forges. Ironwood, on the other hand, had a long standing tradition passed down from the early founders of maintaining the forest, cutting trees within the valley in a carefully tracked cycle so they always maintained a certain level of ground cover. The forest was mostly made up of spruce and birch trees, spread out much more widely here than would occur naturally, allowing the sun to filter through from overhead and the first glimpse of the village from up ahead.

A clear swath of open ground a few hundred yards across surrounded the village on all sides, affording anyone up on the wall a clear shot at any potential attackers.

If there had been much wall left _to_ stand on.

The carefully fitted stones of the base were still in place, but the mighty wooden structure that made up the rest was in various states of disrepair as far as the eye could see. This time it was Erend who swore vehemently as he was confronted with the state Ironwood had been left in by the depredations of war and constant machine attack.

He stood there for a moment at the edge of the clearing, the frustrated gesture of a hand quickly disguised as a move to smooth his mustache when he heard the perturbed murmuring of the people behind him. Erend glanced back to see his cousin looking vaguely shamefaced as the immensity of the damages fully settled in for him in the face of their reaction. No doubt the downward slide had been gradual, and Dorund had only been 16 the last time Erend had stood in this very spot, so he could hardly blame his cousin, and yet…

And yet nothing. Just because things were even worse than he’d realized didn’t change the fact that they were here and he had a job to do.

“Come on,” Erend called over the noise as he raised a hand for quiet. “Lets get inside and get organized; we’ll figure everything out from there.”

Luckily, the ealdorman had been blessed with a voice that easily supported a tone of command when he wanted it to, and it was enough to calm the growing restlessness of the caravan.

He lead the way towards the gate which was, miraculously, still standing, as Gelda muttered, “Hard to tell where the outside ends and the inside begins,” but quieted at a dry look from Erend.

Past the remains of the wall was a broad, flat courtyard that doubled as both marketplace when the traders were in town, and public gathering arena that some previous generation had paved with closely fitted cut stone that had weathered the test of time with minimal wear. Now, however, they bore the scars of machine claws and cracks from extreme heat in places, though remained smooth enough to not give the carts too much trouble as the caravan began to fill the courtyard.

People of the village had started to gather before they even made it through the gates, and by the time the entire caravan was inside, they had gathered some four dozen onlookers. Many of them had started to mingle with the newcomers, seeming pleased to see them and eager to make introductions, though others were more standoffish; watching from windows and doorways nearby.

“Surprised _everyone_ didn’t come running at all the noise,” Erend mused as he looked over the crowd, then glanced behind him, back up the steps to the lodge that overlooked the courtyard.

“Erend, this _is_ everyone,” Dorund said quietly, making the new ealdorman’s head snap back around to look at him, expression incredulous.

Frowning, Erend turned his gaze over the crowd again and realized that his cousin was right. Dorund had _told_ him the numbers, after all, but it was one thing to hear them and another to see them first hand. Ironwood was a small village, probably three hundred strong when Erend had left five years before, but to see, or rather, _not_ see so many people he had grown up around was… shocking to say the least. He had a lot of bad memories attached to the years he had lived in Ironwood, but old fashioned though so many of the people had been, he had never wished any _harm_ on most of them.

Mouth settling into a grim line, Erend motioned for Gelda to take over helping everyone get organized, then turned and walked up the stairs towards the lodge. It was an old, weathered building, and the man was relieved to see that _it_ at least had changed but little since he left, and appeared to have suffered no obvious damage, unlike the outer wall. The lodge was arguably the most important structure in the village, serving as a sort of community center where people could gather for events or appeal to the ealdorman for assistance.

It also served as the ealdorman’s personal quarters, and was the home Erend had been raised in from infancy.

Standing outside the arched double doors at the top of the steps was a small group of people, the majority of whom Erend recognized immediately. First and foremost was his uncle Toruf, whose frown didn’t ease a single degree when his nephew finally stood before him, Dorund at his heels.

“Toruf,” Erend greeted his uncle stiffly, shoulders tight and chin raised as he stared the other man down, a silent challenge for him to object to his presence there. The man seemed smaller than he remembered, the new ealdorman thought in passing, though he wasn’t sure if age had withered Toruf, or if he had simply grown since first leaving the Claim. Either way, despite the immediately obvious family resemblance between them, Erend realized he had a good inch or two in height over Toruf.

His uncle scowled at him, and said, “I’ll be plain-hammered as I can about this: I think this is a mistake.” Toruf’s brown eyes narrowed and he raised his own chin as he continued, “ _You’re_ a mistake; we never should have summoned you back here.” Erend grit his teeth, gray eyes sharp, but before he could say anything, Toruf’s attention turned to the caravan and all the valuable resources it carried with it, then said, “But I was overruled.”

He glanced back over the group of people behind him, and Erend did the same. Toruf’s wife Magda stood there waiting, along with her mother, Ilsa, and what Erend assumed were the surviving elders of the village, most of whom were great aunts or uncles of his. He was certain it was _them_ that had made the decision to overrule Toruf’s bid as ealdorman and send for his better connected nephew instead. No doubt it stung the man’s pride something fierce, and in another place, for another man, Erend might have felt some sympathy.

In the here and now, however, with a man cut from the same cloth as his father, he felt only antipathy.

“Good,” Erend said with a thin, dangerous smile that made Toruf’s eyes widen fractionally. “If you _approved_ , I’d know I was doing something wrong.” His uncle made a sound of annoyance but the new ealdorman ignored him and turned to face the crowd of people in the courtyard. His terse meeting with his family, while subdued, had still attracted a great deal of attention, so it didn’t take more than a raise of Erend’s hand and a call for quiet to them to settle into an expectant silence.

“Most of you know me, but for those that don’t, my name is Erend, former Captain of Sun-King Avad’s Vanguard and,” the man grit his teeth a moment, but managed to continue, “son of Branuf Ealdorman and Fara Ealdorwife.” None of this was news to anyone, of course; even those who hadn’t really known him when he’d still lived in Ironwood at least knew _of_ him. The fact that he’d chosen to mention his captaincy of the Vanguard did stir up a quiet murmur among the long time residents, though. “Your elders decided to summon me back to Ironwood to become the new ealdorman for obvious reasons,” Erend said with a wave of a hand towards the goods laden caravan, drawing a chuckle from those who had accompanied him, “but my reasons for accepting that summons are my own,” he added more seriously.

Erend paused for a moment and glanced back at his uncle and the elders; the former of whom looked furious, the latter resigned. Magda and Ilsa, perhaps unsurprisingly, wore masks of carefully cultivated neutrality that the ealdorman couldn’t make heads nor tails of before he turned back to face the crowd once more.

“Suffice it to say, there’s going to be _changes_ around here,” he proclaimed matter-of-factly, hands settling on his hips as he stared down the long term residents in particular. “Things won’t be going back to the way they were when I left the first time; _that_ -” he raised a finger to punctuate his words, then pointed to the caravan, “is the cost of all this. We’ll rebuild your village, we’ll bring back the merchants, and we’ll make sure that _everyone_ is safe and fed… but in exchange, this isn’t _your_ village anymore. It belongs to everyone, and we are _all_ going to be working together to make it into something new, something better than what it’s been.”

Behind him, Toruf growled, and Erend spun just in time to grab him by his coat front and held him tight, gray eyes cold and sharp as they burned into his uncle’s. He didn’t know what the man’s intention had been, but Erend didn’t bother to ask as he pushed him backwards up the step towards his wife and said, voice ringing out across the courtyard for all to hear, “Anyone who has a _problem_ with that can leave; I’ll even give them some supplies to see them on their way.”

If he’d thought Toruf was furious before, the older man was outright livid now, and his wife was forced to place a hand on his arm to calm him. He shook her off, but didn’t try to move towards Erend again, so the ealdorman turned back towards the waiting crowd.

“We are _done_ with the days of treating our daughters like property, of beating our sons into submission, and letting ‘tradition’ override common sense,” he declared loudly and was met with a cheer from the crowd that surprised him with its volume. Even old residents seemed to be joining in, which he took as a good sign, though he knew the real battle would come in the long term when the village was no longer on the verge of collapse and fear no longer plagued their every waking moment.

Still, it was a start.

The sound of footsteps behind him made Erend glance around again, but this time it was to see Toruf storming off, Magda in his wake, while Ilsa, hard to read as ever, remained. Dorund stepped forward then and clapped a hand on Erend’s shoulder, a smile on his face. “Nice speech,” he said, then glanced after their uncle and said, “Don’t worry about him. He won’t dare do anything.”

“Not yet, anyways,” Erend said, eyes narrowed as the other man disappeared from sight around the side of the building. When he looked back at Dorund, his cousin appeared genuinely worried as the implication of Erend’s statement sank in, so the ealdorman patted his shoulder and said, “It’s too soon start fussing about it now. Best go find your wife before you get dragged into all this,” then jerked his chin at the caravan, around which everyone else was beginning to swarm with the intent of unloading its precious cargo.

Dorund flushed and smiled. “I’ll be back to help in a few.”

Erend just hummed skeptically. “Sure,” he said with careful blandness that made his cousin’s blush deepen, though it didn’t stop him from hurrying away in search of his much missed other-half.

The ealdorman watched him go for a moment, a traitorous pang lancing through his heart as wistful thoughts of a certain red head threatened to distract him from the task at hand. He only indulged them for a moment, wondering what it’d be like to come back after a long journey to find her waiting for him. Hell, he’d gladly play the other end and see her off on a hundred expeditions if it meant she’d return to his waiting arms at the end of each excursion…

Erend gave himself a mental shake and started down the stairs to the courtyard where his people were waiting for him. “Alright, lets get all this unloaded and get everyone settled in for the night. We’ll see about assigning duties tomorrow once I’ve had a chance to inspect the village,” he said as he reached Gelda where she stood waiting with Nazeed, captain of the contingent of soldiers Avad had sent north with them until Ironwood was stable enough to protect itself once more.

Unpacking the caravan and finding space to put everything proved to be less of an issue than finding places to put all the new _people_. Dry goods, raw materials, and tools, carefully packed in crates, could be left in the open or under a tarp, but finding a place for everyone to sleep indoors for the first time in over two weeks proved to be much more difficult. Many homes had been destroyed over the years, which hadn’t been much of an issue until now as the population had dwindled even quicker than that. Any empty buildings that were still standing underwent a rapid cleaning and were packed to capacity, but that still left the majority of people out in the open.

The local inn, long since abandoned after its owner was killed and visitors stopped coming to Ironwood, received the same treatment, but in the end, Erend ordered the lodge opened for use as well. The large building had several spare rooms meant for visiting dignitaries or personal guests of the Ealdorman, as well as the ealdorman’s own immediate family, and these were filled accordingly. Everyone else would spread out pallets on the floor of the open, two story room that was the lodge’s great hall, and would bunk there until proper lodgings could be constructed. Not the best arrangement, but it was warm and came with a roof overhead, so no one complained for the time being.

The lodge, often used to host large community gatherings, came with an equally large kitchen that rapidly transformed into a hive of activity as several women stepped in and started preparing dinner for everyone, new arrivals and old residents alike. At the heart of it, Erend found Magda, though he had yet to see a sign of her recalcitrant husband since he’d stormed off a few hours earlier; not that he was about to complain. Better to let Toruf sulk while Erend got his feet under him here in Ironwood to save him fighting a battle on two fronts.

He hesitated before approaching Magda; he hadn’t known her well before he’d left the village, and she’d only been married to his uncle for a few years before that. She had moved to Ironwood from another village several days travel southeast, part and parcel of a trade agreement between their two clans in much the way Branuf had intended to use Ersa. She was at least two decades her husband’s junior, and couldn’t be more than five years older than Erend himself by his estimation. Magda had always been a quiet creature and so, consumed as he'd been with his own problems growing up, Erend had paid her little attention.

Something he regretted in retrospect.

Everywhere she went around the kitchen, Magda’s steps were dogged by a girl of about eight who shared her fair hair and dark eyes, and Erend realized with some surprise, must be his cousin, Lira. She’d only just started stringing sentences together when he’d last seen her, so to see her so grown now was startling, though he wasn’t sure just what he had expected. At the moment she was busy helping her mother, fetching ingredients one moment, then adding them to a big pot the next with the kind of practiced motions that bespoke familiarity with her tasks.

That all stopped the moment she caught him watching from the kitchen door. The girl’s eyes went wide with shock as she froze, then darted immediately for the protective cover of her mother’s skirts in a way that forced Erend to mask a smile with a distracted stroke of his mustache. Magda glanced down to chide her daughter, but when the girl refused to move, looked up with a frown to see what had caused the sudden change in temperament.

Understanding passed over the woman’s features when she spotted him in the door, though she didn’t greet him, so Erend went to her instead.

“Hello, Magda,” he said, and when she glanced up at him he noticed a brief flicker of surprise in her eyes, making him wonder if she’d expected him to ignore her.

“Ealdorman,” she said demurely with a bob of her head in greeting. “Welcome home.”

Erend made an effort not to grimace outright at the honorific, but did say, “Please, just… Erend.”

Magda fixed him with a hard to decipher look she seemed to have inherited from her own mother, then glanced away again and stirred the pot she stood over while other women bustled busily around them. “As you say,” she said, then reached down and carefully pried her daughter from her side and pushed her back into view. “Say hello to your uncle, Lira.”

Technically speaking, of course, Erend was Lira’s first cousin, but it was common among the Oseram clans for much younger relatives to, with the exception of parents and grandparents, refer to their elders as aunt or uncle, no matter their actual relationship.

So suddenly put on the spot, the poor girl looked desperate for the earth to open under her feet and swallow her up whole, forcing Erend to suppress another smile. Her gaze rooted on her shoes, Lira mumbled something Erend didn’t catch, and her mother chided her sharply. “Lira, speak _up_ , don’t be rude.”

Erend raised a hand and said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s been years, I doubt she even remembers me.” Lira hadn’t moved, even under the lash of her mother’s tongue, so the ealdorman dropped into a crouch before her in an attempt to make himself less intimidating. It’d been a long time since he’d been short enough for anyone to loom over him, but Erend could still remember how much he’d disliked it as a child, particularly when that person was a stranger. “You know, you were probably this high the last time I saw you,” he told the girl, tone light as he held a hand out at the height of her waist and smiled as he tried to catch her gaze. “What’s your mother been feeding you, fertilizer?”

Lira’s head jerked up and she finally looked her uncle in the face, expression contorted in disgust. “Ew, _no_!”

The man laughed and Lira’s eyes went wide in horror as she realized he’d managed to get a reaction out of her. Magda heaved a long sigh but didn’t chide her daughter for falling for Erend’s teasing as the man straightened once more, still grinning.

“Well, whatever it is, if you keep it up you’ll be tall as me in no time.”

“I don’t want to be _that_ tall,” Lira said, mortified as she looked up at him, wide-eyed at the thought.

“Better lay off the fertilizer, then.” She grimaced at him and Erend smiled, pleased that she at least didn’t appear so very frightened of him now. He looked around the kitchen briefly, then looked back at Magda and asked, “Is there anything you need in here?”

The woman looked surprised again, then, hesitant almost to the point of suspicion, and asked, “What do you mean?”

Confused, Erend lifted a brow and waved a hand as he said, “Well, you lot are trying to cook for everyone, do you have all the ingredients you need? Pots? Spices?”

Magda’s gaze turned very keen in spite of herself and she asked, “What _kind_ of spices?”

Realizing he’d twigged onto something important to the woman, Erend shrugged nonchalantly and said, “All sorts. The Sun-King was very generous.”

The woman hummed at the news, then looked down at her daughter and said, “Go with your uncle and see what they have. You know what we’re short on.”

Lira’s gaze darted between her mother and her uncle, the latter of whom smiled kindly and gestured for her to lead the way out of the kitchen. Apparently still shy, but unwilling to argue with Magda, the girl only hesitated a moment before she nodded and did as she was told, falling into step with Erend as he lead her out towards the caravan.


	5. From the Ashes

Despite her worries about becoming too tall, Lira was so much shorter than Erend as they walked side-by-side out of the lodge and down the stairs towards the courtyard, that he was able to watch the girl quite closely without her even realizing it. With the exception of her outburst at his teasing earlier, his cousin seemed very self possessed for someone so young, something that showed in her every movement, down to the way she walked with her hands folded neatly before her. It was still strange to the man to see her so grown; she was certainly far less prone to chattering than she had been as a toddler; not that he’d spent a great deal of time with her.

Another thing he regretted with the clarity of hindsight.

Childcare was ‘women’s work’, as far as most Oseram within the Claim were concerned, so even if he’d had some particular desire to be more of a presence in his cousin’s life, his father would have had something to say about the matter.

“Did the Sun-King really give you all of this?” Lira asked as they approached one of the stockpiles of goods that had been unloaded from the carts.

“Sure did,” Erend said as he pulled aside the protective tarp to find what he was looking for.

Lira was quiet, watching him with dark eyes as he shifted boxes of various goods, checking labels and setting them aside when they proved to not be what he was looking for. “How come?”

The ealdorman paused long enough to glance back over his shoulder at his cousin and said, “Because he’s a good man and he wants to make up for everything his father did.” After a moment, he considered, and added, “Plus he kind of owes me one. Three, even.”

“Papa says it’s all a trick and the Carja are just acting nice so we’ll let our guard down, then kill everyone and take our lands.”

Erend nearly fumbled a particularly fragile box as he spun to look at Lira, horrified by the poison his uncle had apparently been dripping in the child’s (and no doubt anyone else that would listen’s) ear. “Hey, woah now,” he said and quickly set aside the box, then dropped to a crouch in front of his cousin who was watching him closely with a worried frown. “That is not what is going to happen,” he reassured her, voice gentle but firm.

“But Papa says-”

“Hey,” Erend cut her off, careful not to raise his voice with the girl, but still intent on killing this toxic line of thought before it could take root and cause further damage. Fury at his uncle for trying to turn Lira against the newcomers and the outside world in general simmered in his gut, but the ealdorman was careful that he didn’t let it show in his face. “Which one of us is best friends with the Sun-King; me or your old man?” The girl only ducked her head and avoided his gaze, so Erend answered for her. “Me. Avad is a _good_ man,” he said, then reached out and and gently lifted her chin so he could look her in the eye. “Little spark, I _promise_ nothing like that is going to happen, no matter what. You understand me?”

Lira was quiet, dark eyes huge in her pale face as her small hands fisted tightly in the fabric of her skirt. A tremor racked her little body, and she finally spoke again in a voice barely above a whisper, “Do you hate us, Uncle Erend?”

“What?” he asked, startled by the question, even more so when his cousin’s chin began to quiver. “Fire and spit, girl, of _course_ not,” Erend insisted fervently as he placed his hands on her narrow shoulders, half-afraid she’d shake herself apart trying to keep her tears back. “Lira… Lira listen,” he said as he raised one hand to brush away a stray tear that escaped to trail down her cheek. “Your father and I don’t agree on much, I’ll admit,” he said, careful with his words under the weight of his cousin’s gaze. “But we _both_ want to protect all the people here in Ironwood and make it a safe place to live again. That’s what I’m here to do.”

Lira sniffled and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “But you said earlier you were going to change everything and Papa was _so mad_.”

Erend sighed and sat back on his heels, quiet for a moment as he considered his answer. “You’re right, I did. And I am; because it _needs_ to change. Ironwood can’t go on like this and survive,” he explained patiently, wondering how many others among the long-time residents of the village felt the same way as his cousin. “I know change can be scary,” Erend said, “But, steel to my soul, Lira, I promise everything’s going to be okay. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, you just send ‘em my way and your uncle Erend will set them straight, okay?”

Lira watched him uncertainly and Erend offered her a smile in turn, then lighting upon another idea, offered, “Wanna spit and shake on it?”

The little girl’s eyes widened fractionally and she glanced down as he held out his hand between them. “Papa says only menfolk do that.”

Erend snorted and leaned in to say, “Don’t tell the freebooter women I brought back with me, they’ll riot,” in a conspiratorial tone.

A smile finally broke out across Lira’s face and her uncle flashed her a grin in response as he waggled his fingers. “Okay,” she said finally, then glanced around surreptitiously to make sure no one was watching and spit into her right palm. It was messy, obviously her first ever attempt, and Erend struggled not to laugh when Lira wound up with a dribble of spit on her chin which she quickly wiped away with the back of her sleeve.

He quickly got the impulse under control when his cousin offered him her hand, though, and he followed suit, spitting much more proficiently into his own palm and then grabbing hers firmly before giving it a good shake.

“Ew,” Lira said with a grimace that was broken by a giggle when he released her hand again.

“Yeah, a bit,” he agreed and chuckled as he wiped his palm off on his pants and Lira did the same on her skirt. “But now it’s not just a promise, it’s an oath,” Erend told his cousin as he stood once more. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep everyone here in Ironwood safe.”

“What happens if you break an oath,” she asked curiously as her uncle turned back towards the pile of crates to find what they had come looking for.

“Not sure,” he said, then winked at his cousin and said, “I’ve never broken one.”

“Maybe your hand falls off,” Lira said thoughtfully as she stared at her palm.

Erend laughed. “Could be. I’ve heard stranger things.” Lira looked at him skeptically and the ealdorman grinned. “Its true! Remind me to tell you about Aloy sometime.”

“Aloy,” Lira repeated slowly, the unfamiliar name ringing strange to her ears. “Who’s that?”

“The woman that saved my life,” he stated simply with a warm smile that his cousin, young though she was, instinctively knew had nothing to do with her. “And the Sun-King’s. And the entire world, for that matter.”

“One person couldn’t do all _that,_ ” Lira objected.

“She’s a _very_ special person,” Erend said, then made a sound of triumph as he finally found what he was looking for. There were several boxes of spices, but this was one of the smaller ones, so rather than sort through it, he simply pushed it into Lira’s arms and said, “There, now take that back to your mother, I’m sure she’s wondering where you got off to.”

“But _how_ ,” the girl objected, still so focused on Aloy that she barely spared her new burden a glance.

Erend chuckled and, taking his cousin by the shoulders, gently spun her about then gave her a push back towards the lodge. “Later, little spark, ask me _later_.”

Lira frowned back over her shoulder at him, but when her uncle only make a shooing motion with his hands, she heaved a sigh and did as she was told.

* * *

Magda and the other cooks made good use of the spices and everyone sang their praises over dinner, Erend included. Bellies full, most people made for their beds immediately after, tired in that very special way one only is when they’ve finally arrived at their destination after a long journey. Finally able to let their guards down, most of the new arrivals seemed to nod off no problem at all while their ealdorman refrained, opting to make a round to be certain everyone had gotten settled in. Erend hadn’t found a place to bunk for the night himself, but as he made his way back up the stairs from the courtyard and into the lodge, pack slung over one shoulder, he figured he’d find himself a piece of floor in the great hall so he’d be easy to find if anyone came looking for him.

Before he could, though, the man spotted Ilsa waiting at the base of the stairs that lead into the upper story where the private sleeping quarters were located. Magda’s mother caught his eye and crooked a finger at him, clearly requesting his presence. Having no reason to deny her, Erend approached the older woman, but before he could say anything, she motioned for him to follow her up the stairs.

He hesitated only a moment, glancing back at the crowded floor of the great hall, then started up the stairs after Ilsa. When they reached the top and were out of earshot of those below, the elder glanced back over her shoulder and said, “I’ve had a room prepared for you already, Ealdorman.”

“What?” he asked, surprised. “I’d’ve been fine on the floor, better to fill these rooms with a family, or-”

Ilsa leveled a sharp look on him that made Erend shut his mouth so hard his teeth clicked. Everything about the woman was sharp; the planes of her face, her long nose, her eyes… Even her steely gray hair, which she wore bound up in a long braid that coiled, crown like, atop her head, managed to give off the impression of razor wire.

“You’re the ealdorman now, Erend,” the woman said as she stared down her nose at him (how she managed that when she was several inches shorter was beyond him). “Whether you like it or not. That means maintaining a certain standard that does _not_ -” she paused for effect as she gave him a stern once over with her eyes, “involve sleeping on the common room floor in your own house.”

She started back down the hall again without waiting for his reply, and Erend realized that this simply wasn’t an argument he was going to win with this particular woman. He followed her without objection, though he couldn’t help but mutter, “Seems like if it’s _my_ house, I ought to be able to sleep where I like,” under his breath.

Without looking around, Ilsa said, “Sulking like a spoiled child is _also_ not included in those standards.”

Erend scowled, but before he could make any counter argument, he realized just where the woman was leading him.

His parent’s room.

“No, not there,” the ealdorman said sharply and came to a dead stop in the center of the hall, refusing to take another step towards the familiar doorway. “Any room but that one, I don’t care which.”

Ilsa’s frown of disapproval deepened and she turned to look at him. “There _are_ no other rooms, Ealdorman, every one of them is full to brimming.” Erend tried to speak again, but before he could, she said, “Now, it’s time for you to grow up, Erend,” in a cool tone, then spun on heel and opened the door. “There are no ghosts here. Face your responsibilities and accept that your status, whether you like it or not, comes with certain trappings.”

 _Certain trappings_ , she’d said. He never had been fond of ‘trappings’.

They felt, well… very _trap_ -like.

Goodness knew he’d heard Avad complain about them more times than he could count in the years he’d known him. His throne, his castle, his crown… they’d all weighed heavy on the man, and Erend knew for a fact that his friend would have given them all up at the drop of a hat (or a crown, rather) given the chance. One night over drinks not long after the Liberation, Erend had finally asked him why he _didn’t_ do just that. He was king now, after all, at the end of the day, wasn’t his word law?

The Sun-King had nearly laughed himself sick at that.

When he’d finally gotten himself under control, Avad had pointed out that a king without a crown was just another man, but a mere _man_ couldn’t hold the Sundom together. You needed something bigger, something grander for people to look to beyond themselves; a figurehead. A king. A king was a crown, a castle, a throne, and if a _man_ wanted to lead a people, to make changes… well, he’d need all the trappings of a king to make them pay attention.

Someday, maybe, a man would be able to rule the Sundom without the castle or the crown, or more importantly, the birthright, but if that change was ever going to come, Avad had long recognized his need to weaponize those things he had been born to. Apparently Erend was going to have to do the same, no matter how much he disliked the prospect.

Well, at least he didn’t have to wear a stupid hat.

Erend didn’t offer Ilsa an answer, but the fact that he stepped into the room after her without further complaint seemed enough of an acknowledgment for the woman. While the ealdorman hovered uneasily just inside the door, the elder went to the bed in the corner and picked up a large, soft parcel wrapped in old linen, then returned to Erend and offered it to him.

Confused, the man put down his bag and frowned, but accepted it. “What’s this?” he asked as he unwrapped the parcel, gradually revealing a neatly folded bundle of fabric that, when shaken out, proved to be a long coat with full sleeves and fur collar of the sort Erend hadn’t worn since leaving the Claim. Even when he had, he’d certainly never had one as nice as _this_. The outer layer of fabric was a striking shade of deep, arterial red and of fine, but extremely durable quality; the inner lining black and soft to the touch, no doubt insulatory in nature, as most Oseram outerwear was. The fur of the collar was black as well, with just a haze of silver along the fine tips of the hairs, taken from the darker variant of foxes that could occasionally be found in the Claim, though it must have taken two of the animals to make such a large piece.

“It’s yours,” Ilsa answered simply and Erend’s frown deepened as he tore his gaze from the wonderful coat and fixed it on her instead.

She didn’t seem the type to give gifts easily, even to an ealdorman, particularly one she only seemed to barely tolerate. “Another of the trappings you mentioned?” he asked skeptically.

Rather than subjecting him to another lecture, however, Ilsa’s expression softened, like cracks appearing in the surface of the indifferent mask she’d been wearing since he first arrived. “That coat is the last thing your mother ever made, or so I’m told. Apparently she finished it shortly before she died.”

Erend went very still at her words, and for a moment he swore his heart stopped in his chest altogether. “What?” he asked thickly, fingers tightening their grip on the fabric reflexively.

“Your mother made that coat,” Ilsa repeated, seeming patient for a change. “I found it in one of the long term storage chests when we were cleaning up after your father passed,” she explained. “I didn’t realize what it was, of course, but Bana did.”

Bana, his mother’s only sister and Dorund’s mother. The name didn’t stir much in Erend now beyond the vague sense of wistfulness her presence, or lack thereof, always had. Bana might have been his mother’s junior, but they’d looked so similar that people around the village had long joked that they were like twins separated by years, and as such, Toruf had found her presence intolerable after Fara had passed so suddenly. Erend had heard whispers that she’d offered to take him and Ersa in to spare him and, he suspected, spare _them_ , but their father had adamantly refused. And so, despite living all their lives in the same village, Erend and Ersa had barely known one of their closest blood relatives.

His sister had always been less troubled by this than he was. Being older than him, however, Ersa had better, sharper memories of their mother and Erend suspected Bana’s presence had hurt her in much the same way it had Toruf.

“I assume your mother intended it to be a gift for your father, but never had a chance to give it to him,” Ilsa continued. When he remained quiet, she said, “It’s very fine work.”

For all that he could barely recall his mother, it was strangely easy to imagine her sitting by the fire, humming absently to herself as her nimble fingers bent themselves diligently to the task of embroidering the sturdy fabric. So much so Erend wondered if it was less a daydream and more of a half-forgotten memory.

“It is,” he agreed quietly, and while the thought that the coat had been intended for his father irked Erend, the fact that it had been made by his mother’s own hands before her untimely death made it one of the most valuable things now in his possession. “Thank you,” the ealdorman added after he’d managed to gather himself enough to give Ilsa a grateful nod.

“Thank your aunt when you see her next,” the elder said as she moved towards the door, “She’s the one who insisted we set it aside for you, even before the elders decided to summon you back.”

The door closed behind Ilsa before Erend had a chance to reply, and he was, at long last, completely alone for the first time since he’d left Meridian. It was a little lonely, but at the same time, freeing to finally have some time with his own thoughts.

Erend carefully draped his mother’s coat over the chest at the end of the bed, then took a seat on the edge of the stuffed mattress and looked around him. He’d never spent much time in his parent’s room, particularly after his mother had passed, but it still held a certain familiarity. A lot of the furniture was the same, or at the least similar enough in design that he couldn’t much tell the difference. The chamber was a relatively spacious one with the bed dominating one corner, along with a chest and standing closet, while the other side was a small sitting area situated in front of a fireplace. There was a free standing, folded screen made of slatted wood pushed to one side that could no doubt be pulled out to divide the room as needed, though that was one of only a few ‘decorative’ pieces left in the space.

It left the room feeling a little empty, but considering the alternative would have been being forced to look at his father’s lingering possessions, Erend was fine with that.

Feeling suddenly tired, Erend flopped back onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling, wondering what the morning would bring until he finally worked up the energy to get ready for bed.

~

When he woke the next morning, Erend didn’t feel much less tired than when he’d gone to sleep the previous night, but he forced himself up and out of bed at dawn regardless. While he couldn’t remember a single one, the ealdorman felt as though he’d been plagued by dreams the whole night through.

He got dressed quickly, deciding to eschew his armor altogether for the first time since leaving Merdian as he had no plans to leave the village that day. Before he left his room, though, his gaze lit on the bloody crimson of the coat he had inherited and paused. Erend picked it up almost reverently and allowed his calloused fingers to trace over the fine embroidery as he considered it for a moment, then shook the coat out and pulled it on. The fabric settled easily over his broad shoulders, the weight of it strangely comforting as Erend adjusted it and realized, with some surprise, that it was a perfect fit. Had someone already made adjustments to it, or was it mere chance that his father’s build twenty years ago was almost identical to his own now?

Erend didn’t like the thought of being similar to his father in _any_ way, but he pushed the thought aside and resolved to be grateful that something his mother had made so long ago fit him today.

Dressed and as ready to face the world as he was going to be, Erend grabbed a hasty breakfast from the kitchen, once again a communal affair, then went off in search of the people he’d need to make a proper assessment of the state of the village.

He found Dorund first, seated at one of the tables in the great hall next to a woman he could only assume was the man’s wife. His cousin saw him approaching and immediately got to his feet with a quick aside to the woman, who stood as well, a nervous smile on her face.

“Erend, I’d like to present my wife, Carila,” Dorund said.

The woman bowed her head respectfully and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ealdorman.”

“Please, call me Erend,” the ealdorman said with a wave of a hand as she straightened. “Good to finally meet you too; my cousin wouldn’t shut up about you the whole trip here,” Erend added with a teasing half-grin at Dorund who flushed. When his wife ducked her head, the ealdorman quickly amended, “Only good things, I promise,” and was rewarded with a shy smile.

“Would you like to inspect the village?” Dorund asked, rightly guessing his cousin’s reason for seeking him out.

“Assuming you’re done eating, yeah,” Erend said. “Got a few other people to round up first, though.”

“Yes, of course,” Dorund said with a nod, then quickly planted a kiss on Carila’s cheek and they shared a murmured farewell before the man motioned for Erend to lead the way.

Again, Erend had to stifle a pang of envy, though luckily he wasn’t able to dwell on it long as they set off in search of Gelda, Galamin (the Carja architect Avad had loaned them), and, unfortunately, his uncle. All were found fairly quickly, and Erend was relieved to find that, despite his fury the day previous, Toruf had enough sense about him to recognize that the importance of their work that day overrode any personal grudge between them.

Not that he was any less cold towards the new ealdorman, but Erend didn’t give a rat’s ass about his manners as long as he cooperated so they could get the village rebuilt as quickly as possible.

A few others from the village, knowledgeable in how it had originally been built and the efforts made to repair it over the years, joined them as they walked the streets of Erend’s ancestral home. It was a strange experience for the man, who found himself frequently trying to reconcile his memories of the place with the shattered, burnt out husk entire sections of it had been reduced to. The closer to the walls one was, the worse the damage, and for all Erend had been glad to shake the dust of the place from his boots five years ago, he never would have wished this kind of devastation on Ironwood.

At the end of the tour, during which Dorund had been taking extensive notes while Erend and the others discussed measures that would need to be taken to get things up and running again, they wound up at one of the few remaining sections of wall still safe to stand on and climbed to its top. The ealdorman stared out across the forest towards the looming, mist shrouded mountains, arms folded tight across his chest as a thousand-and-one thoughts all clamored for his attention at once.

There was an overwhelming number of problems to be addressed, so much so it was hard to even rank them in order of most pressing to least after awhile. Gelda seemed to feel the same as she came to stand next to him while the others argued among themselves at his back and said, “It’s bad, isn’t it? Worse than we thought.”

Erend glanced down and for once his friend’s carefully guarded expression was full of naked concern. The sight was enough to drag him from the downward spiral his thoughts had been caught in and Erend took a deep breath. He could do this; for her sake, for everyone’s sake. He just had to take it one step at a time, that’s what Ersa had always said. _Quit acting like a Watcher with your eye shot out and start with the obvious_ , he told himself, _then work your way out from there._

“Yeah,” he agreed after a moment, then gripped her shoulder and gave the woman a shake. “But it’s not a lost cause, so don’t give up on me yet.”

The worry melted from Gelda’s face and settled into more familiar lines as she took a deep breath of her own and said, “I’m not; I’m here. Just needed to hear you say it.”

The ealdorman flashed her a smile, then turned back to the rest of the group and said, “Alright, so the wall comes first, obviously. We’re not going to get anything done with our asses hanging in the wind. Let’s get together a team and start clearing trees for the lumber we’re going to need.” He turned his attention to Toruf and asked, “Where have we been cutting?”

“Just north of the village,” his uncle answered as he pointed in the appropriate direction and Erend nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he caught Dorund and a few of the others looking uncomfortable.

“What?” Erend asked his cousin with a frown, making the younger man jump as he was called out.

“I- uh-” he stammered, and Erend immediately noted that he seemed less uncomfortable under the weight of his gaze than Toruf’s, who was glaring daggers at him.

The ealdorman arched a brow and said, “Don’t look at him, look at me, Dorund. Now, what is it?”

He knew his uncle was likely glaring at the back of his head, but Erend ignored him in favor of watching his cousin, who seemed to rally at his insistence. Dorund cleared his throat then flipped back through the rather hefty book of records he’d been hauling around with him and referencing throughout the tour, and said, “We _have_ been cutting trees in the North woods, but we shouldn’t have, we’re off the traditional rotation schedule. We _should_ be cutting from the Southwest.”

Erend’s eyebrows shot up at this news, then snapped back down into a frown as he rounded on his uncle and demanded, “Why are we off schedule? You _know_ we rotate where we cut for a damn reason! Every child in this damn village knows!”

“We needed the lumber and the North had plenty to give,” Toruf said with a sneer, bristling at his nephew’s tone. “We had repairs to make! The Southwest is further away and harder to access-” he began, but Erend cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand.

“Fat lot of good repairs are if there’s no trees left to hold down the topsoil come the spring melt and the whole scorched-out village gets washed away in a mudslide!” Erend snapped furiously. “You _know_ that’s why we don’t clear cut this entire damn valley you old fool!”

“Call me fool again!” Toruf snarled and stepped towards Erend, who planted a hand in the center of his uncle’s chest and pushed him back into the arms of the other men, who held him back from another try.

“I’ll call you fool all I want until you stop fucking acting like one!” the ealdorman bit out, then looked around at the others and asked, “Do we have any foresters left in the village?”

One of the younger men raised a hand and said, “My father’s one, Ealdorman. There are a few others, too.”

“Good, go find them and have them meet me in my office in half an hour. We’ll need to do a survey of how bad the damage in the North woods is so we know just how slagged we are come spring. After that we’ll organize a team to head to the Southwest and start marking trees for cutting,” Erend said and the other man nodded, then hurried quickly away to compete his task. He turned to his cousin then, and said, “I want a copy of all those lists you made today. Try and organize them in order of importance, if you can.”

“Yes, of course.”

To the others, Erend said, “The rest of you, put the word out; I want everyone who doesn’t currently have a specific job detail gathered in the courtyard after lunch.” As they left, the ealdorman caught Gelda by the arm and held her back, making her raise an eyebrow in silent question at him. “Make sure you’re there too,” he told her. “I’m going to put you in charge of training the civilians in basic combat; women included.”

Gelda’s other eyebrow went up to match the first and the ghost of a mischievous smile pulled at her mouth. “Oh? The menfolk aren’t going to like _that_ , sir.”

“Yes, which is why I’m putting you in charge of it,” he said. “I need someone who’s not afraid to slap a few patriarchs around until they see reason.”

The woman barked a laugh and he grinned as they started back towards the lodge.

* * *

The meeting with the foresters went well; they all seemed very enthusiastic about Erend’s intent to put them back on the proper tree harvesting schedule. Toruf, it seemed, hadn’t been convinced by their opinions in the past, so he suspected that being willing to listen to them now swayed the other men in his favor faster than anything else he could have done. Together they decided on two teams of people; the first and smaller to be sent to check on the extent of the damage done in the North woods and determine if any action would be needed to keep them from drowning in mud come spring. The second, much larger team, would get together the people, gear, and carts they needed and head to the Southwest to set up a logging camp to start clearing what they’d need for the rebuilding efforts. Luckily, Dorund had thought to include coal on his list of supplies needed while they were still in Meridian, so the making of new coal stacks could wait for at least a little while.

After that, Dorund appeared with his neatly written copies which he and Erend discussed and arranged, immediately followed by Nazeed. Head of the contingent of Carja guards Avad had sent north with the caravan, the man was wonderfully capable and had already organized his men into guard and patrol shifts around Ironwood. He’d also taken the hunters under his command at the ealdorman’s request, and as he gave his report, Erend was relieved to discover that they’d discovered little machine activity in the immediate vicinity of the village. There was, however, some signs that there might be bandits in the area, but Nazeed doubted they’d dare to attack Ironwood once they realized it was now under strict guard.

Erend grimaced at the news and made note of it; deciding it was worth looking into once he could spare a few hands around the village.

Hours later, head swimming with numbers and lists and reports, Erend was dragged from his thoughts by a knock at the door. This one was much quieter than all the other’s he’d had to hear that day, much more tentative in nature, which was likely the only reason he noticed it at all. “Come in,” he called, but when the door didn’t immediately open, he began to doubt his ears after all. The ealdorman might have put it down to his imagining things but a second, softer noise came through the door and finally drove the man to his feet.

“Who-” he began as he pulled the door open, only to cut off as he found his Lira waiting outside, both hands occupied by a tray of food she’d clearly been trying to juggle so she could work the knob and let herself in. “Woah, careful there,” he warned, nearly reaching to take it from her, only to stop when he realized she had it under control again.

“Mama said to bring you lunch,” the girl informed him.

“Well thank you,” Erend said, and this time he did try to accept the tray from her, only to have the girl pull it out of his reach and squeeze past him into the office instead.

“She said I was to stay and make sure you eat it, too,” she added as she reached his desk and put the tray down on top of it.

A wry smile pulled at Erend’s lips and a huff of amusement escaped him. “Ah,” he said, then closed the door and moved to take his seat again. Still, he was grateful for the food, and even more grateful for the distraction from his work as he dug into the simple, but satisfying meal his aunt had sent.

Meanwhile, Lira explored his office, which, like his private room, had previously been occupied by his uncleToruf, and his father Branuf before him. There were even fewer signs of his father’s presence here than in his bedroom, however, so it didn’t bother him much beyond the lingering memories of shouting matches and more than a few whippings that seemed to hover in the corners of the room like old cobwebs. Mind occupied by more pressing subjects, Erend found them easier to ignore than he’d expected on walking in that morning.

Movement in his periphery brought his attention to the edge of his desk where Lira was now leaning, chin resting on her folded arms as she watched him with big, dark eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’m eating,” he said, holding up a slice of gravy soaked bread and then taking a large bite of it to prove his point.

The girl didn’t move, though, and after another moment’s silence she asked, “Did you _really_ fight a Deathbringer, Uncle Erend?”

The ealdorman snorted at the question and almost wound up choking on his mouthful for his trouble. When he’d managed to clear his airway, he asked, “Did your mother actually tell you to stay here and make sure I ate?” A guilty look passed over Lira’s face and Erend laughed, then sat back in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully across his desk as she stopped leaning and stood up straight. “Whose been telling stories?” he asked, amused more than anything.

Lira folded her hands behind her back and rocked absently from toe to heel. _“Everybody_ ,” she replied after a moment. “I heard some of the aunties talking about it in the kitchen,” the girl explained, then asked again, “So, _did_ you?”

“I did,” he admitted, chuckling when her eyes went wide. “Not by myself, but some friends and I took down a few of them at the battle for Meridian,” Erend explained.

“But _how_ ,” she burst out. “Everyone says they’re-” the girl searched for a point of reference, then seized upon one and threw her arms wide as she exclaimed, “they’re bigger than this entire _room_!”

Erend laughed outright and said, “Yeah, they are I suppose. There’s a bit of a trick to it, if you can stay alive long enough to exploit it. Key is to set them on fire first, they don’t like that.”

“There was one here too, you know,” Lira said and Erend’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “It crawled up out of the ground and attacked a settlement, then just-” she waved her hands, “stopped. No one knows why.”

Erend, of course, knew _exactly_ what had woken the machine up, and why it had stopped again just as suddenly, but the fact that one had been here, of all places, was news to him. “Which settlement?” he asked and pushed aside his tray of food in favor of unearthing the map of the village’s territory he’d been referring to with the foresters earlier.

The entire valley, along with a smaller one adjacent to it, and a large swath of the mountain itself, technically belonged to his clan by right of charter under Claim law, but the majority of the people lived there in Ironwood. However, some lived in much smaller ancillary communities where farming or mining was the focus of their daily efforts. Most of their farmers lived in the shallower, less accessible valley to the east where there was more stable soil to be worked, though some could also be found in certain carefully cleared and maintained sections of the Ironwood where the valley was at its lowest point.

“Not sure,” Lira admitted with a shrug.

Erend hummed and frowned down at the map, then sighed and pulled his rapidly growing to-do list towards him and added a note to find out which settlement had been attacked and if they needed assistance. It’d been months since the battle, but he wasn’t about to take anything for granted after realizing his uncle had taken the easy way out at the expense of their future safety in regards to tree cutting just that morning. After another moment’s consideration he added a second note to send a representative out to all the settlements to announce that there was a new ealdorman and that he was available to take requests of support if they needed it.

His forgotten lunch tray nudged his elbow and Erend glanced up to see Lira pushing it towards him with a frown. “You’re supposed to _eat_ ,” she told him in a disapproving tone.

“Right, right,” he huffed and put his notes aside in favor of eating.

After a moment, Lira asked, “So, did Aloy help you fight the Deathbringers?”

The ealdorman looked up at the girl again and found her watching him expectantly. “Thought I was supposed to be eating,” he asked around a mouthful.

“Can’t you do both?” she asked and he struggled not to laugh and choke himself again.

“Alright, fine,” he mused. “Yes, Aloy was there fighting the Deathbringers too. In fact, she was the one leading the charge.”

Expression wide-eyed and eager, Lira dragged a chair in close and sat herself down on it, then turned her attention back to him with an air of expectancy.

Erend grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I _swear_** Aloy will show up again eventually, guys, stick with me XD The romance is coming, I promise! Probably not next chapter, but maybe the next? I won't make promises because chapters get away from me sometimes 8'D


	6. Banditry

The handing out of project assignments after lunch went smoothly, though the announcement that anyone who hadn’t received one and didn’t already have fighting experience would be joining Gelda for weapons training went down like a lead kite with the long time residents. Even some of the new arrivals seemed less than pleased with the news.

“Alright, quiet down,” Erend insisted as he raised his hands for silence, Gelda at his side on the lodge stairs overlooking the courtyard. “In case some of you have  _ forgotten _ ,” he drawled, then gestured towards a few of the off-duty Carja guards gathered at the back of the crowd, “our heavily armed Meridian friends won’t be with us forever. The Sun-King needs them back sooner rather than later, and then we’re on our own when it comes to defending our walls.” The ealdorman tucked his thumbs into his belt and a snort of amusement escaped him as he added, “When we have walls worth defending again, anyways.” That managed to pull a smattering of chuckles from the crowd and eased the tension a little before Erend continued in a more serious tone, “There’s a lot on the line, here. Even with all the new blood there’s not so many of us that we can afford to not have every man _ and _ woman take up arms if we’re attacked. That’s just one of the new facts of life you’re all going to have to accept, no matter how much you think it flies in the face of tradition.”

“I ain’t cuttin’ my hair,” a female voice from somewhere in the crowd shouted, stirring up another round of chuckles and some low murmurs from the others.

“Nobody’s asking you to cut your hair,” Erend said with a dismissive hand wave, amused but earnest. To make his point, he gestured to his companion and explained, “Gelda’s one of your own; she left with me five years ago and has been fighting by my side ever since. You won’t find a deadlier hand with a short sword from here all the way to the Forbidden West. And-” the man paused for effect, during which Gelda turned to give him an inquisitive, if slightly flustered, look that he met with a cheeky wink a moment before he reached over and plucked the helmet off her head. “-she keeps a very tidy head of hair if I do say so myself.”

The woman did indeed have a full head of brown hair, which she kept just shy of chin length to frame her round face. Gelda blinked in surprise as her head was unexpectedly exposed, then shot Erend a flat look and reached up to reclaim her helmet from him. A smattering of applause, good-natured laughter, and even a few catcalls met the display, inspiring an rare blush to bloom across Gelda’s face.

With the crowd’s temper soothed, Erend patted his friend gratefully on the back for playing along with his joke, then addressed his people again. “Listen, we’re not trying to turn anyone who doesn’t want to be one into a warrior,” he explained. “I just want to make sure everyone’s able to defend themselves and knows their way around a weapon on the off chance we ever need all hands on deck to protect the village.” The man let his words sink in for a moment, then continued in a lighter tone, “On the other hand, if anyone masters all that and finds themselves wanting to learn more? We can make that happen; but I’m not looking to force that on anybody.”

Gelda took things from there and Erend found himself almost immediately swept back up into his work until dinner, after which he claimed a little time for himself to take a walk around the village. Not much had changed yet, but there was something in the air that made the ealdorman’s skin buzz with restless energy. Maybe it was the people; despite the long day, many of them were still awake and about their business, every one of them seeming eager to be doing one thing or another now that they had a real _ purpose _ again. A distant, though achievable, goal to aim for.

It was late, but as he made his way back towards the lodge, Erend saw the foresters and their teams putting the last touches on the caravan they’d be taking out on their assigned missions, clearly set on leaving at first light. The ealdorman exchanged a few words with them, confirming their plans before leaving them to it and going in search of his bed, mind still racing a mile a minute with all the things yet to be done.

He was so distracted, in fact, that he didn’t even notice the person leaving front door of the lodge as he reached the top of the stairs until they made a small noise of surprise. Glancing up, Erend stopped when he laid eyes on the woman before him, heart stuttering unexpectedly in his chest as their eyes met across the short distance between them. Hers were even bluer than his own, and her hair, once jet black, was threaded through with streaks of silver that gave her a distinguished appearance, rather than aging her.

There were more lines around her eyes and mouth than the last time they’d met, Erend noted, distracted as his gaze roved over her familiar features the same as she was doing to him; but the woman was still the spitting image of his mother.

“Bana,” he said, and his maternal aunt offered him an uncertain smile in turn.

“Erend,” she replied, and seemed about to say more, before catching herself, uncertainty growing by the moment.

She didn’t know if he wanted to see her or not, the ealdorman realized with a start and his heart gave a pang at the thought. Forcing himself to move, he approached and gave the woman a warm smile in hopes of setting her at ease. “It’s good to see you,” he said, voice low and sincere. The ache behind his ribs intensified as Bana’s eyes went wide and threatened tears, and Erend spread his arms in silent offer without his giving it a second thought. After only a moment’s hesitation, his aunt stepped forward and wrapped him up in a tight hug that he gladly returned.

She was crying now, Erend could tell from the subtle tremors that wracked her shoulders, and though he tried to hold back his own unexpected wave of tears, he failed. Throat tight with emotion, the ealdorman tucked his trembling aunt in tight against him and hoped she wouldn’t mind that a few of his own tears had become caught in the dark waves of her hair.

It felt to the man as though there were a vast, dark gulf between them, left there by decades of forced estrangement by his father and full up of so many things to be said that neither of them knew where to begin. But they _ could _ begin, now; bridge the terrible gap Branuf had dug between them and finally connect after all these years, and that, Erend realized, might be enough to make his decision to return to Ironwood worthwhile all on its own.

“You’ve grown so much,” Bana said tearfully as she wiped at her eyes when they finally parted, and Erend knew instinctively that she didn’t mean just since he’d left five years ago. His aunt sniffled and smiled as she gestured at him with a hand and said, “Look at you, so tall and handsome; no wonder all the girls can’t keep their minds on their work.”

Erend laughed wetly as he mopped at his own face and smiled down at the woman. “It’s good to finally see you, Aunt Bana,” he repeated fervently and her smile widened in teary-eyed recognition of the many long years weighing down his words.

“It’s good to finally see you too, Erend,” she replied, then reached out and neatened the front of his coat, more tears threatening at the corners of her eyes and voice cracking a little as she said, “and in your mother’s coat, no less. You wear it well.”

“Thank you for saving it for me,” he said as he ran an appreciative hand over the lapel. “It… it means a lot,” he admitted, his own voice gone tight again.

Bana nodded. “It’s what Fara would have wanted,” she replied confidently. His aunt’s smile faltered then as she said in a voice barely above a whisper, “Oh, Erend, she’d have been so proud of you.” She clearly wanted to say more, but was forced to pause as her eyes rolled up in an attempt to keep from crying again, fingertips brushing furtively at the tears gathering there. “She’d have been so proud of _ both _ of you,” she managed eventually and Erend was forced to duck his head and take a steadying breath as the words hit him like a forge hammer. “I’m so sorry about Ersa,” Bana continued as she fought a losing battle with her emotions that eroded her nephew’s just as quickly. “I’m sorry I was never there as she grew, and I’m sorry I’ll never get to know the woman she became.” A sob escaped Bana then and Erend pulled her back in for another hug and his aunt buried her face into the fabric of the coat her sister had gone to her grave laboring over. “If I had half the nerve my sister did I’d have gone with you to Meridian, even if I _ am  _ worthless in a fight,” she choked out and he shushed her, pressing his lips briefly to her dark hair.

“Don’t go down that road,” he warned his aunt in a shaking voice. “It only leads in a circle; trust me, I know.”

Bana’s shoulders heaved as she took a deep breath and tried to get herself under control before finally pulling away again and managing a weak smile for her nephew. “But you broke free, and now you’re here,” she said eventually, and he nodded.

“I had help,” he admitted with a weak smile of his own. Erend offered his aunt his arm then, and Bana accepted it, tucking her own through it as they walked back into the lodge together, both of them looking a mess, but neither of them particularly caring.

“Tell me about your time in Meridian?” Bana asked hopefully. “And… about Ersa; if you’re ready.”

Erend nodded.

* * *

The next few days came and went in a blink, and luckily, Erend’s restless slumber went with them. Busy as he was during the day, up at dawn and still going long after sunset, he barely had the energy to get undressed before crawling into bed, let alone lay awake worrying. Come morning he found he’d lost any interest in maintaining the very careful cut of his mustache, which required a steady shaving hand as well as a loss of several minutes he could otherwise be spending in bed. So he trimmed it back short and let the chin grow out to match so he wore a full beard; not exactly in style among the Oseram, though he’d seen enough Nora men sporting the look to think he might be able to pull it off.

The idea that a certain Nora _ maid  _ might prefer the look crossed Erend’s mind as well, but he refused to think too hard on the matter.

He was tempted to grow the rest of his hair out as well; maintaining a mohawk required less frequent shaving than his mustache did, though, so he let it be. With his penchant for uprooting traditions there in the village, it occurred to the ealdorman that it might not hurt to maintain at least  _ one _ of them, for the look of the thing.

Before a week had passed since his arrival, Erend put together a small group to go examine the settlement that had fallen victim to the Deathbringer Lira had told him about. It had taken him longer than he liked to get to it, but it seemed every time the ealdorman turned around there was some new problem that needed to be addressed, or argument mediated. To say he was looking forward to a chance to get out of the village for the day was an understatement.

The farming settlement was a little over two hours from the village at a brisk pace, located within the main valley at one of its lowest points where tree clearing was unlikely to lead to landslides. Nazeed, two local men, and Toruf accompanied Erend on his outing, and they made good time when they set off that morning. Erend didn’t particularly  _ want _ to invite his uncle along, but with him having been the last person making major decisions for the clan, he wanted Toruf on hand to answer any questions that might occur to him while they were out.

They’d all worn full armor out of an abundance of caution, and Erend’s war hammer was a familiar, comforting weight against his back as they walked, something he realized he’d missed after spending the better part of a week without it. Other than the picked over remains of a watcher along the path, however, they saw no machines between Ironwood and the farming settlement. He’d been reviewing the records for their winter stores with Dorund and Ilsa, and the fact that one link in the clan’s network of farms was presumably going completely unattended despite spring now being in full swing was a factor that could be the difference between feast and famine come the new year. If they couldn’t get things set in motion here quickly, what reserve funds Erend had ordered set aside for emergencies would wind up in the pocket of the local traders in exchange for extra food brought in from outside the valley, which was something he’d rather avoid if at all possible.

The lack of machines on the path meant more time for Erend to think, which he was grateful for, though after a few minutes it occurred to him that once upon a time he would have been aching for a good fight right about now, anything to distract him from all the numbers and planning. Well, alright, he would still welcome a fight to distract him, but definitely not so much so that he’d go out  _ looking  _ for one the way he once might have.

Forge-fire take him, was he getting  _ old _ ?

A little shudder overtook the man at the thought, though he didn’t have long to dwell on it as their group passed through the forest’s edge and found themselves in a huge clearing. Set in the lowest part of the valley, the surrounding mountains loomed overhead on all sides, but it was still early enough in the day that the sunlight reached the ground uninterrupted, forcing Erend to lift a hand to shield his eyes from its brightness.

It was warm here, the air stiller than anywhere else Erend had yet been in the valley, no doubt thanks to a quirk in the local geography. Other than birdsong and the distant rush of water, there wasn’t a thing to be heard, making the crunch of their feet against the rocky path feel deafening. The actual settlement, known to the residents as Greenglade, was located on the opposite side of the clearing, but even from a distance it was immediately apparent that it was a ruin nature was already beginning to reclaim. The fields were just as bad, left fallow and overgrown, and though Erend was no farmer, he knew it would take a great deal of labor to have any hope of getting the farm up and running again in time for summer. It was far too late in the season to hope to get any of the usual spring vegetables the rest of their farms already had well under way, but summer and fall crops were still a possibility.

Granted, there was always the question of where they would get the people from to make it all happen…

Erend pushed absently at the furrow in his brow with the pad of his gloved thumb as he thought, wishing he’d brought Dorund along to take notes while he talked through the things they’d need to do first. Still, he knew he’d made the right decision telling his cousin to stay in Ironwood; he was no fighter, and with the state of Greenglade unknown, Erend hadn’t been willing to risk their most valuable scribe. So, instead, the man reached into his belt pouch and drew out a small notebook and a pencil then began making notes in a brisk shorthand himself as they walked.

The sound of Nazeed whistling brought Erend’s attention back to his surroundings, and he glanced up to see that they’d reached the buildings and, beyond them, the Deathbringer.

“Feels like a shadow’s passed over me every time I lay eyes on one of those things,” the guard grumbled and Erend hummed his agreement.

Glancing at his uncle, Erend asked, “Has it already been scavenged for parts?”

“As best we could,” Toruf said with a shrug. “Those things aren’t like normal machines,” he added with a dark look the ealdorman couldn’t fault him for.

Still, he made a note of that in his notebook as well. It wouldn’t hurt to ask around the people he’d brought with him from Meridian to see if any of them had experience scavenging old world machines for useful bits that were less easily identified than their modern counterparts.

That done, Erend put his notebook away and turned his attention to the settlement itself, which had about four good walls left standing, though no two together belonged to the same building. The Deathbringer had hit them hard, probably after dark if you took into account the distance from Meridian and the time of year, which would have likely put the sun behind the mountain ridge when the attack began. Wandering among the charred remains of several homes, Erend tried not to think of how frightened they must have been at the appearance of such an unexpected attacker; caught up in the heart of the battle as he’d been, Erend himself had been  _ terrified _ , but at least he’d known it was coming.

Not like these poor farmers.

“What happened to the people here?” Erend asked Toruf as he exited the rubble, brushing ash from his gloves.

His uncle tore his gaze from the deactivated Deathbringer to look at him, and then meaningfully off to a cleared patch of ground a dozen yards away where a number of memorial cairns stood in the shadow of what had once been a barn.

“All of them?” Erend asked with a frown. Tragic as the scene was, there didn’t seem enough cairns to account for the number of people that would normally make up a farming community of this size.

“I’d guess about a third of them survived,” Toruf said after a moment’s thought. “Don’t know where they wound up, though. Not here, obviously.”

The ealdorman narrowed his eyes, suspicion growing at his uncle’s careless phrasing. “They’re under Ironwood’s protection; they didn’t petition you for help?” A look of discomfort and annoyance crossed Toruf’s features and Erend realized his suspicions were correct. Horror and disgust warred in him as he said, “Fire and spit, they  _ did  _ petition, didn’t they? And you turned them away.”

Toruf scowled and tried to defend himself. “We didn’t have any assistance  _ to  _ offer,” he insisted. “We’d just been attacked ourselves, and-”

Erend cut the man off with a sound of disgust and walked away, unable to bear being in his presence any longer without doing something he might regret later. The utter callousness of the man galled Erend to his bones and only intensified his long standing displeasure at being so closely related to a person so lacking in empathy.

Toruf did not pursue him, which was for the best as the ealdorman was sure he would have hit him if he’d tried, and they left not long after. With the settlement so thoroughly destroyed, there wasn’t much left that could be put to immediate use, which meant they’d have to set up a temporary camp to house whoever they could spare to start working the fields here as soon as possible until they could properly rebuild.

Yet another thing on the to-do list.

The journey back to Ironwood was as untroubled by machines as their original departure had been, though the same couldn’t be said for humans.

As the path twisted and wound through the forest, it passed through a rocky outcropping that always put Erend’s hackles up, and this time, his distrust of the passage proved all too legitimate. Three people appeared at the far end, armed with pole-arms and bows, while several more closed in from behind and still others appeared overhead along the rocky outcropping in a perfect ambush. A quick glance told the man there were about ten of them, possibly more if others were hidden out of sight, waiting to provide back-up if necessary. Not bad odds on a normal day considering everyone in his party had extensive fighting experience, but Erend knew that advantage was negated by their opponent’s control of surrounding geography.

“Bandits,” Toruf hissed as he and the other two men they’d brought along turned to face backwards down the path and keep an eye on those overhead, while Erend and Nazeed faced down those ahead. “Just what we rutting needed.”

There had indeed been reports of bandits in the area, raiding storehouses and robbing travelers, but as Erend regarded their adversaries, the label didn’t sit right with him. He’d fought bandits before;  _ lots  _ of them, so the ealdorman liked to think he could spot them when he saw them, and these…

These weren’t bandits.

For one, they looked underfed to a man, and for another, while their weapons all looked uncomfortably pointy, a lot of them had a very improvised appearance to them. Most convincing of all, however, was their apparent leader’s first words, “Drop your weapons and your bags and we’ll let you pass.”

Bandits, in Erend’s extensive experience, generally didn’t have many qualms about killing you to get your things, especially when they had the advantage in numbers  _ and  _ the high ground. The ealdorman had swung his hammer down off his back the moment they’d been boxed in and immediately taken a defensive stance, but as he considered his options, he straightened while his uncle spat, “Not likely, slag.”

“Put down your weapons,” Erend said, voice low and commanding as he dropped his hammer, then drew his belt knife and put that down as well. Beside him, Nazeed hesitated, but did the same, followed by the other men and, with a final, quiet swear, Toruf as well. Around them, their would be attackers relaxed fractionally, easing bow strings and lowering blades. Taking his chance, Erend stepped forward towards the apparent leader of the ‘bandits’, who responded by raising his bow again and pulling it back to full draw, arrow sighted, as far as the ealdorman could tell, directly between his eyes.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” Erend said, gentle but firm as he carefully raised his hands and slowly slung his small day pack down off his shoulder and tossed it to the ground between himself and the other man. “There’s not much in there, but you’re welcome to it and anything else we’ve got with us. I just want to talk.”

The other man, tall and thin with that kind of sharpness about him people often got when they’d gone too long without basic necessities, let alone any home comforts, eyed him suspiciously. “Talk about what?” he asked.

“Are you the survivors from Greenglade?” Erend asked, jerking his thumb back the direction they’d just came.

The man, and those with him, tensed in response to the question, which was all the answer the ealdorman really needed, but he was gratified when his would-be attacker said, “Yeah, what of it?”

“I’m Erend V-” he paused a moment, realizing he’d nearly given his old name, and quickly corrected to, “Ealdorman. I’m the head of the Ironwood clan,” Erend explained.

A woman standing next to the bandit leader leaned in and murmured something to him, her eyes on Toruf, who still lingered at Erend’s back, eyes on the force of people behind them.

“Last we heard,  _ he  _ was Ealdorman,” the other man said with a sneer as he pointed to Erend’s uncle with the point of his arrow, making Toruf glance around as a low, angry murmur rippled through the crowd.

“He was,” Erend replied quickly before things could get out of hand. “But he was doing a piss job of it so the elders sent for me to take over in his stead.” The frankness of his words drew a few sniggers from the crowd, which Erend took for a good sign, so he pressed on in a more serious tone, “I only heard about how he treated you today. He never should have turned you away in your hour of need, no matter how bad things were in Ironwood.”

“Yeah, well, he did,” the other man scoffed. “Pretty words aren’t going to fix that, so the rest of you can just drop your things and be on your way, same as we were.”

“Listen,” Erend said, choosing his words carefully, all too aware of the arrow that was still trained on him. He might be wearing his full armor, but at such a short range it wouldn’t be hard for the man to hit an unprotected area. Namely his face. “It’s clear to anyone that you’ve been through it since that Deathbringer woke up and destroyed your homes and your families.” He looked up and around at the other ‘bandits’ as he continued, “I want to invite you back to Ironwood. When the elders summoned me I was in Meridian serving as the Sun-King’s Vanguard Captain and he sent me back with supplies and people to help rebuild.”

The people broke out into murmured conversations among themselves, and Erend could practically feel the heat of his uncle’s glare burning into the back of his head, but he ignored it. “You can’t trust them! They’re thieves!” Toruf hissed.

“They’re  _ survivors  _ that  _ you  _ abandoned. They are  _ our people _ that you left to fend for themselves; what did you expect them to do?” Erend snapped at Toruf, taking a brief moment to return his livid gaze before turning back to the ambushers.

The conflict behind the other man’s eyes was painful to behold, and Erend wasn’t surprised when he asked, “Why should we believe you? For all we know you’ll get us back there and have us locked up for banditry.”

“I know it’s not easy to trust after everything you’ve been through,” the ealdorman said. “But if it helps, think about it in the most mercenary way possible: I brought more people back with me, but we’re still short on hands with everything that needs doing, and that includes working your farm. We’re going to need that food come winter, so if nothing else, it’s in  _ our  _ best interest to get you back to Greenglade as soon as possible.” They were coming around slowly, Erend could sense the shift in tone as they occasionally spoke among themselves, so he continued. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to go back to your fields, though. I’m not sure I’d be able to myself under the same circumstances. Anyone that doesn’t want to return to Greenglade can stay in Ironwood and take the place of someone that wouldn’t mind moving out there. We’ll shift people around as needed, we can make this  _ work _ , I promise.”

The leader of their would-be attackers retreated a few paces and spoke at some length with a few of the others while the rest kept Erend and his people under strict watch. Eventually, the man returned, bow lowered, and said, “Alright, we accept.”

Erend broke out into a huge grin at the news and offered the other man his hand, “You won’t regret it. What’s your name?”

“Argeld,” the other man said, hint of a smile finally making itself known on his thin face as he accepted the gesture. “And I’d better not or you’ll answer for it, Erend Ealdorman.”

Erend huffed a laugh, his own smile turning lopsided as he released his hold on Argeld’s hand and said, “What else is new,” then turned back to watch as the estranged farmers came down from their perches and joined with the rest of his group. Nazeed was regarded with some curiosity while the other two men who’d accompanied Erend reconnected with what appeared to be former acquaintances among the farmers, while Toruf was avoided. Erend couldn’t blame them considering their history, and the cold, hard to read expression his uncle was wearing didn’t make him any more approachable.

The ealdorman didn’t have long to dwell on it, though, as the other newcomers all made a point of shaking his hand and introducing themselves before they all started off towards Ironwood together. All Erend could hope was that maybe Toruf was rethinking his past decisions rather than contemplating how best to off him in his sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from you guys!  
> This chapter was mostly world building and foundation laying, so thanks for sticking through it, ahaha, hope it was still enjoyable! Assuming the first half of the next chapter doesn't get TOO out of hand, Aloy should finally make her reappearance, so look forward to it!


	7. Breaking Point

In the end, there were far more people happy to see the surviving farmers of Greenglade return peaceably with Erend’s party than not, particularly among the original residents of Ironwood. It probably shouldn’t have surprised the ealdorman; these were people’s friends and extended family, after all, no doubt they had been worried, especially when rumors of ‘banditry’ started flying around the valley. Toruf’s decision to turn down their request for aid had not been popular, apparently, though fear of being turned out themselves had likely kept them silent.

Argeld proved to be a sharp, capable man with a good sense of humor once he was able to trust that Erend fully intended to keep his promise. Despite how much he and the others had lost that night in Greenglade months before, they all resolved to return there and pick up where they had left off as soon as possible.

“They’ll need fattening up before they go,” Magda had remarked a day later after Argeld had approached Erend to announce the farmers’ decision while his aunt was in earshot. “Half of them look like they can barely lift a hoe, let alone work a plow.”

“They didn’t seem to have any problem menacing us with bows and spears,” Erend mused with a wry snort as he crossed his arms absently over his chest. “But you’re right. We’ll keep ‘em here for a week, make sure they’re healthy before we send them back out.” He nearly made a snide comment about how they wouldn’t be in such dire need of feeding now if Magda’s husband had assisted them when they’d first come to him for help, even if it meant everyone else having to tighten their belts a little, but he checked the impulse. Toruf definitely wasn’t the sort to ask his wife for her opinion on things, and since Erend had returned, he’d witnessed plenty of times when his uncle had dismissed or outright ignored Magda rather than listening on the off chance she might have some insight on a problem he did not.

While Erend himself still felt he was on unsteady ground in his personal relationship with his aunt, it hadn’t taken more than a day or two as ealdorman to realize she and her mother had a better grasp of what was going on in the community of original residents than Toruf did, particularly the womenfolk. Magda was only five years older than him, but the ealdorman had a hard time getting a good read on her, no doubt thanks to years of practice feigning indifference to the harsh words and hot temperament of her much older husband. Erend could tell that his aunt didn’t trust him any further than she could throw him, but he had, at least, made enough progress with her that she was willing to speak frankly when he asked for her opinion on things.

She didn’t seem to know what to make of his doting on Lira, though, and tended to shoot him a skeptical look any time he insisted her daughter wasn’t bothering him when she came begging for stories before bedtime or brought him lunch. Magda couldn’t begin to fathom why an Ealdorman would want to waste his precious time indulging a girl-child, even if that girl-child was his cousin, but as it got Lira out of her hair for a little while the woman had yet to complain.

Lira was a bright, clever little girl with an inquisitive nature that only he seemed willing to indulge, which made Erend’s heart ache any time he was reminded of it. She would hesitate sometimes before asking questions, or shut down after blurting one out, as if expecting to be shouted at or dismissed in a fashion that was far too familiar to the man. The way she always lit up and listened intently when he took her questions seriously and answered them warmed his heart. It wasn’t long before Erend had realized he’d do just about anything to protect that bright smile she got when he agreed to tell her a story, or sat and listened to Lira tell one of her own for a change.

Erend dragged himself back to the present and turned his gaze from the assembled farmers to Magda as he asked, “Do you know any of them?”

“Not particularly,” the woman answered, then hesitated a moment before adding, “But Argeld’s younger sister was a good friend of mine.”

It didn’t take a genius to read between the lines there; Magda’s friend had died in the Deathbringer attack.

“I’m sorry,” Erend said with quiet sincerity. His aunt looked at him, but only sighed and bowed her head respectfully, then turned and went back to the kitchen.

* * *

Time continued to fly by at an alarming pace, and before Erend knew it, he’d been back in Ironwood for nearly six weeks. The village walls were only waiting for finishing touches, taller and stronger than ever thanks to the efforts of the foresters, woodworkers, and builders of the village. Pulling lumber from the southeast section of the valley had slowed down the process a little, but the proactive efforts of the hunters and guards meant no machines had wandered close to the vulnerable village to wreak havoc, making it well worth the delay in Erend’s opinion. Anything was better than looking forward to a season of drowning in mud come next spring. Luckily, his Uncle’s short-sightedness hadn’t caused any lasting damage in the northern woods that transplanting a few saplings from other sections of the valley couldn’t fix.

The soldiers Avad had loaned him were due to leave any day now as well, just as soon as the finishing touches were put on the wall, which meant Erend would have an opportunity to send his friend a letter and fulfill the promise he’d made before leaving Meridian.

So much had happened in the intervening month and a half that Erend barely knew where to start. Ink and paper were both valuable commodities in the village at the moment, so he sat and contemplated the blank, cream colored page for several minutes while he gathered his thoughts, rather than forge ahead recklessly and waste the sheet scratching out mistakes halfway through. Eventually, the ealdorman took up his pen, dipped it in the inkwell, and began to write with a careful hand. He’d been taught to read and write young, better than most thanks to his father’s position as ealdorman, but he’d never had much patience for either, leading to a lifetime of untidy penmanship on his part. Until he’d taken over the Vanguard, anyways, at which point he realized if he actually wanted his orders to be followed to the glyph, said glyphs would actually have to be legible.

With this letter intended to travel so far, it’d be a shame if Avad couldn’t read it when it got there, so Erend took his time. Who knew when he’d be able to send another, after all; he couldn’t spare someone to travel all the way to Meridian just to deliver a personal letter, which meant it’d have to wait until a trading caravan eventually passed through.

A knock on the door echoed through Erend’s office, but the man didn’t glance up when he called, “Come in,” intent as he was on finishing his sentence. When he had, the ealdorman put his pen down and turned his attention to his guest, who proved to be his aunt. He smiled on seeing her and said, “Hey, Aunt Bana, what brings you here?”

“I brought that list of potential apprentices we were speaking about over dinner the other night,” his aunt said as she claimed the seat opposite his and offered him the writing slate she’d carried with her.

Erend accepted it, eyes sweeping over the neatly written chalk glyphs. Back before he had originally left Ironwood for Meridian, Bana’s husband had been the village healer, though he had apparently died in a raid less than a year later. Luckily for the clan, his uncle had been more progressive than most men in the Claim and had long since taken on his wife as his unofficial apprentice, teaching her everything he knew before he passed.

Sadly, all her extensive knowledge hadn’t been enough to save her husband, but Bana had been using it to help the rest of the village ever since. Without anyone to possibly take her place, and no way to hope of attracting a healer from another village when their own was in such a poor state, not even Toruf had been fool enough to order Bana to stop practicing medicine, untraditional though it had been.

Erend certainly had no intention of making his aunt stop either; he had, however, suggested she take on an apprentice or two of her own, and Bana had readily agreed. She’d seemed relieved when he brought it up, and her nephew had realized the thought that the village would be completely helpless if something ever happened to her had occurred to Bana as well.

“Can’t give you this one,” Erend said as he pointed at one name towards the top and wiped it off with a swipe of a finger, “He’s too good on the forge and we need all the help we can get there with all the rebuilding.” Bana wrinkled her nose but didn’t object as he went over the rest of the list, marking off two others before handing the slate back to the woman. “Any of the others should be fine; pick two and get started soon as you can.”

Bana accepted the list back and cast a thoughtful eye over her remaining options as Erend started to turn his attention back to his letter. Before he could, however, she asked, “Do  _ you _ have any suggestions? From the list, or otherwise?”

The ealdorman’s eyebrows shot up then back down again as he considered her question. Erend settled back in his chair and said, “Not real sure. What do you look for in a healer’s apprentice?”

“Patient,” Bana said after a moment’s reflection. “Kind. Nimble fingers definitely help; so does a cast iron stomach.”

Erend snorted in amusement as he mulled over his aunt’s requirements, then finally said, “He’s not on your list, but how about Kazir?” Bana didn’t seem to recognize the name, so he went on, “One of the Carja kids that came with us from Meridian. Young, probably twelve years old; skinnier ‘n a ridgewood twig but whip-smart and quick to learn.”

“What does he look like?” Bana asked as she added the name to her list, interest seeming peaked. “Would his parents agree to his being a healer?”

“Dark skin, wild black hair, and dark eyes. Stands about ye high,” Erend replied as he held a hand up to the right height. “And I don’t see why not. His dad’s a stonemason and his mom’s a weaver, but the Carja aren’t as married to the idea of their kids having to go into the same craft as them as we tend to be.”

Bana nodded and smiled. “Alright, I’ll talk to him, see if I think he’d be a good match. Thank you, Ealdorman,” she said with a respectful nod that made her nephew scoff and wave her off.

Before she could leave, though, a thought occurred to Erend and he said, “Oh, I’m making up a supply list to send back to Meridian with Nazeed and his men since he agreed to contact some of the traders there for me. You need any supplies?” When Bana’s face immediately lit up at his question, the ealdorman laughed then passed her a clean slate and said, “Stupid question, huh? Just get back to me with a list by tomorrow.”

“I can already name several things off the top of my head,” Bana said as she retook her seat and immediately set to writing on the slate. “I’ll leave those with you then go look at my supplies and get back to you with the rest.”

Erend almost warned her not to break the bank, but decided against it. Anything his aunt thought necessary to her craft was something the ealdorman wanted to have immediately at her disposal considering the potentially dire circumstances she operated in; he’d work the budget around her.

Another knock rang out from the door and he called for them to enter. There was a moment of silence and then the door swung slowly open to reveal Lira, attention riveted on the tray she was carrying in one hand while she worked the knob with the other. When it was open wide enough for her to enter, she returned her other hand to the tray as well with a small sigh of relief, then kicked the door shut behind her.

Erend watched all of this with some amusement, but refrained from jumping up to help her after the last time she’d lectured him that she could ‘do it herself’. The ealdorman cleared a spot on his desk, carefully setting aside his letter to be finished later, then smiled at his little cousin and said, “You’re getting pretty good at that.”

Rather than one of her usual enthusiastic grins, however, Lira just flashed Erend a small, half-hearted smile that immediately sent up red flags for the man. Before he could ask her what was wrong, though, the girl turned to his aunt and said, “Hello, Aunt Bana.”

The woman smiled warmly as she glanced up from her writing and said, “Hello, Lira. Helping your mother in the kitchen again?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lira said with a bob of her head, and seemed ready to leave it at that, which only set off further alarms for Erend. The fact that the girl hadn’t tried to get a look at what Bana was working on was odd considering her curious nature, and she’d barely even looked him in the eye once since entering the room…

Bana’s smile faltered as she took a good look at Lira and asked, “Goodness, what happened here?” as she reached out and brushed the girl’s chin with her pale fingers to tilt her head back so she could get a better look at her face. She lifted her gaze to meet Erend’s and the man immediately reached out and used a firm, but gentle hand to turn the girl to face him head on on so he could see what his aunt was talking about.

A soft, sympathetic hiss escaped the man as he finally got a good look at Lira. There was a bruise just starting to bloom across her left cheek, and it was obvious she’d taken a pretty hard hit there, though not quite bad enough to have broken the skin. It was a close thing, however, and Erend was careful not to touch the area as he gently gripped her chin between his fingers and tilted her head this way and that to make sure she didn’t have any others. “That’s gonna be a shiner,” he mused, knowing all the signs of a bad bruise when he saw one from personal experience.

“It’s nothing,” Lira said with a frown as she pulled her face free of his fingers, though Erend kept her solidly in place with a hand on her shoulder as he leaned over in his seat and fetched a small clay jar from the bottom drawer of his desk.

The ealdorman just snorted as he opened the jar and Bana looked on with a small, concerned frown. “Yeah? ‘Nothing’ used to happen to me a lot when I was a kid too,” he mused skeptically. “C’mon, turn your head for me,” Erend instructed Lira in a tone that brooked no argument, though he kept his expression light so as not to worry her. The girl hesitated, then did as she was told while Erend dipped his fingers into the jar and scooped out a small dollop of pale, powerfully aromatic cream and dabbed it lightly onto her cheek.

She hissed and tried to pull away, but Erend grabbed her again to keep her from moving. “It stings,” Lira complained.

“It’ll pass,” the man said, “And it’ll keep that bruise from getting much bigger.” She groaned but put up with his attentions with a grimace that made the corner of Erend’s lips twitch. “Now, what happened?” he asked. “You been showing those boys at the forge what-for again?”

Lira had a long standing rivalry with a couple of the younger apprentices down at the forge he suspected stemmed from jealousy on her part, and maybe a youthful crush on the boys’ side. Erend had noticed his little cousin’s interest in forgework, but it didn’t take a genius to figure that her parents likely didn’t approve, leading to significant frustration on Lira’s part. He’d been meaning to talk to her about it, but he’d been so busy with everything else that he hadn’t had a chance.

Plus he knew it was probably going to end in a fight with his uncle, though that was inevitable. The rebuilding effort had just taken priority thus far.

“No,” Lira answered, tone sulky at the thought of them, though far less vehement than usual. Combined with her continued aversion to meeting his eyes, Erend’s worry deepened and he cast another glance across the desk at his aunt, who seemed just as concerned. When it became obvious he wasn’t going to let her leave until she offered some explanation, however, Lira’s gaze flicked just briefly up to his face, then back down again before she asked in a subdued tone, “Do I  _ have _ to get married, Uncle Erend?”

Erend blinked in confusion and looked at his aunt again. Understanding dawned across her features and Bana sighed unhappily, which was all the ealdorman needed to guess at the root of the question. “No, ‘course not,” he answered firmly as he reached out and carefully brushed a few stray strands of hair from his cousin’s face to prevent them from getting stuck to the balm he’d spread on her cheek. Erend could feel his temper flaring at the thought of someone telling the little girl she  _ had _ to get married; it brought far too many unhappy memories of Ersa’s plight growing up back to the forefront of his mind. Still, he kept a tight rein on it, not wanting to scare Lira off or make her think his ire was directed at her, so he asked, “Whose been putting that in your head?”

Lira hesitated, looking from him to Bana to take in their worried expressions, and then dropping her gaze back to her feet. “Papa,” she said eventually. “I heard him telling Mama that maybe now the village was doing better he’d be able to marry me to someone for better trade…” she said, words petering out towards the end, tears threatening in the corners of her eyes. Lira sniffed, then looked up at him and said, “Please don’t send me away, Uncle Erend! I’ll stop fighting the boys at the forge, and… and I won’t complain when Mama makes me help in the kitchen! I’ll never ask to be an apprentice again-”

Horrified by the child’s desperate pleas, Erend pulled her in close for a tight hug and she buried her face in the collar of his shirt as he said, “Lira, you’re not going anywhere you don’t wanna go,” in a low, rough voice before pressing a kiss to her hair. Her obvious terror at the prospect of being sent away to marry a stranger, even if such an event was still years in the future, sparked a bitter, wrathful flame deep down in the core of him.

It was common in the Claim for parents to arrange their children’s marriage years in advance, particularly their daughters, though not all suffered such a fate. Toruf wasn’t wrong in thinking they were going to have to rebuild a lot of Ironwood’s trade ties, but Erend would eat his own hammer before he let the man auction off his own, or anyone else’s, child to make that happen. More immediately, however, the ealdorman suspected he knew exactly where his cousin had gotten her bruise.

He met Bana’s gaze over the top of Lira’s head, and she must have seen something worrying in his eyes as she quietly said, “Erend,” in a warning tone he paid no heed to.

“Lira,” he coaxed his cousin gently as he pulled her away from his chest but maintained his hold on her shoulders. Something dark and terrible shifted in Erend as he looked down into the child’s wide eyes, but he kept his voice even and calm as he swiped the pad of his thumb over her cheek to brush away a stray tear. “I want you to tell me the truth; did your father give you that bruise?” Her eyes slid sideways and that was all the answer he really needed. Blood feeling like ice in his veins, Erend forced himself to take a breath, then asked, “Has he hit you before?”

Lira’s eyes went to Bana so Erend’s did as well and the woman almost flinched at the intensity of his gaze. “He broke her arm last fall,” the woman said quietly. “I don’t think that was his intent-”

“His  _ intent _ ?!” the ealdorman snapped, but caught himself before he went too far and forced down his building rage with a steadying breath. He wouldn’t be able to keep his temper in check for long, though, he could feel it burning just below his skin, bright and hot as fresh forged steel. Knowing he needed to step away before he wound up frightening Lira, Erend cupped her small face in both his hands so she was forced to look at him again and said, “He was wrong to do that, do you understand me, little spark? Being your father doesn’t mean he has a right to lay a hand on you. If he ever does it again, you come tell me right away, alright? No matter if he tells you to keep it a secret, or says he’ll do worse if you do; I’ll protect you, no matter what.”

“O-okay,” she stammered, trembling a little under his hands at the intensity of his words, though judging by the way she was clutching his shirt-sleeve, he hadn’t frightened her, which was a relief.

“Good. Now, go find your mother, I have some work to do,” Erend instructed the girl as he released her and gave her a gentle push towards the door.

Lira glanced uncertainly back over her shoulder at the two adults in the room, then left, closing the door behind her. Silence settled over them for a moment as they listened to the girl’s footsteps fade in the distance, and as soon as they had, Erend got to his feet, a grim expression on his face.

“Erend, wait, think this through,” Bana said as she too stood and watched anxiously as her nephew grabbed up his coat and pulled it on in one fluid motion. He didn’t reply, but made for the door, lunch abandoned as he started down the hall towards the stairs, aunt on his heels. “Erend!” she called again and grabbed his arm.

The ealdorman stopped, then looked back at Bana and growled, “I’ve had twenty damn years to think, Aunt Bana,” gray eyes sharp and cold as he continued, “ and I know how to deal with monsters now.” He pulled free of her grip then and strode off down the hall, leaving her alone and at a loss.

Toruf was a woodworker by craft, and with all the lumber coming in from the foresters further down the valley, he’d been spending most of his days at the sawmill. Water-powered, like so many other machines of Oseram design, the sawmill was located directly next to the river that ran just a few minutes' walk east of Ironwood. Erend headed straight for it, the expression on his face and the tense set of his shoulders sending people scattering for cover before him like a storm rolling in over the mountains. The ealdorman didn’t notice, nor did he hear the worried whispers that broke out in his wake as he passed through the gates and took off down the path towards the river.

The dark and terrible something that had woken inside him at the sight of the bruise Lira’s father had given her was a force Erend was well familiar with, though rarely let off its leash. The last time he’d felt it stir was the day Dervahl nearly killed Avad and he’d finally had the traitor under his boot. He’d only barely managed to restrain it then, the haunting memory of Ersa’s body going limp in his arms nearly driving him to kill the man in spite of Avad’s direct order. If the Sun-King hadn’t arrived when he had to remind him of his promise… he knew Dervahl would be dead today as sure as he knew the sun rose in the east.

Erend arrived at the sawmill and spotted his uncle almost immediately. “Toruf!” he bellowed over the noise of the men and the machine. “We need to have words,  _ now _ ,” he commanded.

His uncle turned and scowled the moment he saw him. “What is it, boy? Some of us have work to do,” he snapped.

Stepping in close, Erend said, “I’ll be plain-hammered as I can be about this so it gets through your slag thickened skull,” then jabbed him in the chest with a finger and continued, “You ever lay your hand on Lira again and I’ll lay hands on  _ you _ . See how you fare trying to hit someone your own size for once.”

Toruf’s eyes went wide with surprise, then narrowed again as he face contorted into a nasty sneer. “No,” the other man snapped, “You keep your nose in your own rutting business for once, you pathetic whelp. The girl’s got ideas above her place in  _ my _ house, and I’ll curb that as I see fit! Only thing that’ll stop her back-talking is a good slap and I’ll keep doing it til the message finally gets through.”

The man was shouting by the time he finished, and the pair had begun to attract a crowd; not just the other woodworkers, but people from the village as well. No doubt word had spread of the ealdorman leaving Ironwood looking like a man on the warpath and now everyone had come to witness the ever-mounting tension between Erend and Toruf finally snapping.

“Don’t test me, old man,” the ealdorman snarled, fury finally breaking to the surface as his uncle got in his face. Toruf looked so much like his father… Branuf always had the same look in his eyes when he lost his temper and took it out on him or his sister, and suddenly Erend felt like a child again, hunched over double on the ground as his father’s belt cut another line across the exposed skin of his back.

“Or  _ what _ ,” Toruf retorted scornfully as he planted both hands on Erend’s chest and gave him a hard shove that sent the ealdorman stumbling back several paces. “You’re not going to do anything,” the older man scoffed with a snide grin. “Now go back to the lodge and see to your paperwork before I give you a beating that would make your daddy proud.”

Erend sucked in a breath through his teeth and felt the world around him go very quiet; the fury and nausea that had been at war within him since the moment he’d recognized his father’s eyes in his uncle face settled into a sudden stillness that gave the man clarity and honed his focus to a razor’s edge. When Toruf tried to push him a second time, the ealdorman caught his arm and twisted it, sending the older man stumbling away with a curse.

“If you can’t keep your hands to yourself,” Erend said, voice low and carrying with an edge of menace what would have made a wiser man retreat, “Then I’ll teach you the hard way.”

The ealdorman shrugged out of his coat and tossed it aside where it was caught by an onlooker in the crowd Erend barely even registered. The sawmill had been stopped and the only sound now was the river and the occasional murmur from the people that surrounded them on all sides. Toruf glanced around, and realizing that there was no way he could back down without losing what little respect he had left, clicked his tongue dismissively. “Fine, have it your way, boy,” he said, then rushed his nephew, closing the distance between them faster than Erend expected.

He got his guard up in time, though, and the punch Toruf had intended for his jaw glanced off the ealdorman’s forearm, allowing him to counter with a punch of his own. The older man jerked back sharply, narrowly avoiding the blow and retreating a pace so he could recoup, but Erend, experienced fighter that he was, didn’t let him. He closed in and landed a quick jab to his uncle’s chest, winding the man and sending him stumbling.

Erend had always been a brawler, and if a childhood of abuse at his father’s hands had taught him anything, it was how to take a hit. Years spent as a freebooter and a part of the Vanguard had granted his fighting more finesse, however, so rather than take the next hit his uncle came at him with, the ealdorman side-stepped. Toruf stumbled when his punch hit empty air and he swore, expression livid as he found his footing then tried again. Before he could, Erend lunged forward knee first, hitting his uncle square in the chest again with the full weight of his body, driving a grunt from Toruf’s lungs and sending him flying backwards where he hit the ground in a heap.

The ealdorman remembered when he’d first learned that move the hard way in a tavern on the cheapside of Meridian; he knew from experience just how much it hurt. “Stay down, Toruf,” Erend growled as he planted his feet and watched the other man wheeze and grip his ribs while he fought to catch his breath.

“Like hell,” his uncle snarled as he rolled onto his hands and knees, then got unsteadily to his feet. Toruf spit and stared his nephew down with hate in his eyes. “You think you're so much better than us,” he hissed bitterly. “You come in here and hold us hostage to all your rutting  _ changes _ with no damn respect for  _ tradition _ -”

“ _ What _ tradition?!” Erend demanded, temper flaring again. “Our family’s proud tradition of beating helpless children? Or the one where we tell half our population they’re not allowed to do anything but keep a house and make babies just because they were born with the wrong parts? We can be  _ better _ than that, I’ve seen it!” Toruf laughed dismissively and the ealdorman scowled. “Those traditions aren’t worth the forge dirt on my boots or the slag they were forged from,” he said and spit on the ground between them to punctuate his point. Erend lifted his chin then, and, deep voice carrying over the gathered crowd, commanded, “Now bend a knee or get out of Ironwood and never come back.”

Gasps and startled murmurs broke out among the people gathered (it must have been at least half the village at this point), but the ealdorman ignored them, the entirety of his attention focused on his uncle who glanced around him, seeming torn. Making a man outcast wasn’t common in Oseram culture, and he’d once told Aloy that he thought her people’s tradition of doing so seemed cruel…

But then, Toruf was a cruel man.

Erend could see the moment his uncle came to his decision, and a small surge of relief coursed through the ealdorman as Toruf approached and started to kneel. The motion, however, brought the older man within reach of an ax lodged in a section of lumber, and rather than take a knee, Toruf grabbed the tool by the handle and wrenched it free with a practiced gesture that sent the sharped blade arcing directly towards his nephew’s face.

Erend jerked back, immediately on guard as screams of horror and shouts of foul play erupted from the crowd of onlookers while several people surged forward to disarm the man, Gelda among them. Clearly past all reason, however, Toruf swung wildly at them too, narrowly missing Erend’s friend and making the ealdorman shout, “Keep back! I can handle him.”

His uncle barked a laugh and said, “You always were too damn cocky for your own good,” then swung at him again, blade hissing through the air with every arc it made.

Erend kept his distance, and the more Toruf missed, the wilder his swings became until he finally overdid it, twisting so far he lost his balance and providing the younger man the opening he needed. Erend brought his leg up in a devastating kick that landed directly in his uncle’s stomach, toppling the man over backwards with enough force to make him retch, ax tumbling free of his grip so it hit the earth with a dull thud. Desperately trying to fill his lungs with air, Toruf twisted and reached for his weapon, but Erend beat him to it, scooping it up and then rolling his uncle over onto his back with a kick that made the other man grunt.

Standing over Toruf, ax in hand, Erend planted his boot in the center of his uncle’s chest and studied his face with cold eyes. It was the second time he’d had an enemy on his back and at his mercy, but this time he didn’t have anyone there to check his worst impulses. Steel to his soul but it’d be so  _ easy _ to end him then and there, cut this cancer from the face of the earth and leave it a better place for everyone…

“You had your chance, Toruf,” Erend said bitterly and the other man’s eyes went wide as the ealdorman’s grip on the ax’s handle tightened. Rather than swing it, however, Erend took a breath and cast the weapon aside, well out of his uncle’s reach as he lifted his boot from the man’s chest and stepped back. “You’ve got one hour to pack your things and leave. Get out of my village and don’t come back.”

A weak, rasping laugh escaped Toruf as Erend turned to collect his coat and leave. “I knew it. I knew you were a rutting coward,” the older man said with a vicious smile as he rolled onto his side and pushed into a sitting position.

“Not a coward, Toruf,” Erend said calmly as he pulled on his coat without looking around at the other man. “Just better than you. Better than my father.” Glancing across the gathered crowd, the ealdorman spotted Gelda already moving towards him, wading through the chattering villagers to reach him. “Grab some people you trust and make sure he does it, will you?”

“Yes, sir,” she said and snapped off a salute he hadn’t seen her make since they left Meridian.

It was enough to draw a ghost of a smile to his lips as he nodded then started back towards Ironwood, the crowd parting respectfully before him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er, sorry, ya'll. I know I promised Aloy this chapter, but in my defense, I DID stipulate that would only be if the first half of this chapter didn't get completely out of hand and... well. It kind of did 8'D Still, at least we got some action!  
> Make sure to drop a comment and let me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from you guys!


	8. To Seek Shelter

By the time he got back to his office, Erend was feeling exhausted, yet relieved, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders. In a way, he supposed, one had. Toruf had been fighting Erend almost every step of the way since he arrived, and while the Oseram were an argumentative people by nature, the man had taken it to new heights.

Still, where one burden was removed, two more had a habit of replacing it…

The ealdorman settled back in his chair and sighed hugely, longing for the days when he could sit around and think of nothing in particular beyond the next duty roster he had to draw up or security detail he needed to arrange. Life as Captain of the Vanguard had felt so busy in the moment but now all he could do was look back on the time with wistful nostalgia for his own naivete.

There was a knock at the door and Erend heaved another sigh, suspecting he already knew who was on the other side.

“Enter,” he called and straightened in his seat as the door swung open to reveal Magda and Ilsa. “Ladies,” Erend said and gestured to the chairs in front of his desk as he marshaled his thoughts for the conversation he knew they were about to have.

“Well, Ealdorman, it seems you’ve left me without a son-in-law,” Ilsa remarked casually when her daughter did not immediately speak up after they took their seats.

Erend gave her a wry look and said, “Well, Ilsa, it seems your son-in-law tried to murder me in cold blood with an ax.”

The ghost of a smile pulled at the elder’s lips, though it was quickly stifled. While Ilsa was a difficult woman to read, it had long been apparent to Erend that there was no love lost between her and Toruf; he suspected that a life spent chained by tradition was all that had kept her from speaking against him in the first place. 

“So I heard,” she said and glanced sidelong at the still silent Magda, “And so my daughter witnessed.”

The ealdorman’s brows shot up briefly, he hadn’t noticed his aunt’s presence at the sawmill, but then there’d been a lot of villagers gathered by the time the whole affair had come to an end, so he wasn’t particularly surprised. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Magda,” he said with an earnest frown as he turned his attention to the woman. Another thought occurred to him and, frown deepening, he asked, “Lira didn’t-”

“No,” Ilsa immediately answered. “She was with me in the kitchens.”

Relieved, Erend nodded then turned his attention back to Magda. His aunt was even paler than usual, lips pressed into a thin line as she watched him with guarded eyes. “What now?” she asked tersely.

“What do you _want_ to do now?” Erend asked curiously as he considered the woman across the desk from him.

Magda’s brow furrowed and she glanced at her mother, who only shrugged minutely, forcing her to turn her attention back to Erend and ask, “What do you mean?”

The ealdorman leaned forward to rest his elbows on his desk, fingers steepled before him. “I know you’re not originally from Ironwood, I could arrange to have you, your mother, and your daughter sent back to your village, if that’s what you want,” he suggested, and both women blinked in surprise. Before they could reply, he continued, “I won’t lie, though, I’d prefer it if you stayed.”

“Why?” Magda asked, expression the most open Erend had ever seen it; he’d caught her off guard by asking her to stay.

“Well, if we’re being totally honest here, you’re both _useful_ to me,” Erend admitted with a shrug and a half-hearted smile of apology at his own candidness. “You’ve both been vital parts of the rebuilding efforts, and you have valuable insight into what people in the village are thinking,” he said, ticking his reasons off on his fingers. “As much as they might have feared Toruf, it’s obvious that the villagers respect you, even the new ones.”

“Well,” Ilsa murmured a little faintly as she regarded Erend thoughtfully, “I suppose it can’t be said you don’t know how to flatter a woman, Ealdorman.”

“ _Mother_ ,” Magda chided her, but the woman’s mother only ignored her as a huff of amusement escaped Erend.

A worryingly canny look crossed the elder’s face though, immediately putting the ealdorman on edge as she asked, “You’ll take responsibility for my daughter then, since you’ve deprived her of a husband’s support?”

“Responsibility?” Erend repeated, expression guarded as he tried to guess at the motivation behind the woman’s words. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re both family, part of my household. I’ll see to it that you’re cared for, if that’s what you mean.”

“So, you _will_ marry her?” Ilsa asked, then looked taken aback when both of them immediately shouted “ _NO!_ ”. She snorted lightly and said, “Well, why not? She no longer has a husband, and you’ve yet to take a wife, it’s a perfect match.”

Magda, for the first time since Erend had met her, hid behind her hands out of sheer, mortal embarrassment at her mother’s machinations, face beet red. The ealdorman’s wasn’t much better as he countered, “There are _so many_ reasons that is definitely not the case.”

“Like what?” the elder asked skeptically. “She’s only a few years older than you, plenty of years left to give you children of your own; plus it’s obvious you have a father’s fondness for Lira. It all works out quite neatly,” Ilsa said, seeming very satisfied with her conclusion while Erend and Magda could only stare at her in dumbfounded horror. “I raised her to keep a good house, and I know you enjoy her cooking,” the woman continued, deepening their discomfort as she glanced at Erend’s untouched lunch where it still sat on his desk and added, “Usually.”

“Mother!” Magda finally said, raising her voice before the other woman could say more. “If you don’t quit hammering on like this I’ll- I’ll disown you! I swear I will!”

Ilsa shot her daughter a dry, unimpressed look. “No need to be dramatic, dear.”

Magda looked ready to explode, so Erend quickly cut in before she could and said, “Listen, I… I _respect_ and _appreciate_ Magda very much, but after everything my father put Ersa through growing up, I promised myself I’d never take a wife for- for _convenience’s_ sake.” He looked at the woman in question and flashed her a sympathetic smile that seemed to help pull her back from the edge of matricide, then continued in a more somber tone, “And I’d definitely never want a potential partner to feel,” he waved a hand vaguely as he searched for the right word, “ _obligated_ to marry me.” Erend straightened in his seat once more, feeling steadier now as he met Magda’s gaze and said, “You’re free now, find someone you _want_ to be with; or, hell, be single for the rest of your life if that’s you want.” His words pulled a breathy laugh from the woman and the ealdorman added, “After so many years under my uncle’s thumb, I wouldn’t blame you in the least if you decided you’d had your fill of marriage. Regardless, you have a home here, if you want it. All three of you.”

Ilsa sighed and gave Erend a rueful smile as he successfully dodged her attempts to partner him with her daughter. Before she could say anything, though, Magda immediately got to her feet and bobbed her head gratefully. “Thank you, Erend; we’ll stay. We have very little family remaining back in Blackcliff, plus this is the only home Lira has ever known, and-” the woman hesitated a moment, then, for the first time Erend could recall, smiled a true, honest smile as she admitted, “well, things seem to finally be looking up around here. It’d be a shame to leave now.”

The ealdorman stared at her for a moment, completely taken aback, then grinned and got to his feet to offer Magda his hand. “Well then, I look forward to continuing to work with you, Magda.”

Magda’s smile widened fractionally as she accepted his hand and gave it a firm shake while her mother looked on, seeming amused more than anything. “Well,” Ilsa said as she got to her feet and brushed a few wrinkles out of her skirt with a deft brush of her hands. “I suppose that settles it, then. Thank you, Ealdorman.” As the pair of women turned to leave, the elder paused in the doorway and added, “If you ever change your mind, though, just let me know. I’ll put in a good word for you,” then shut the door with a click.

Erend stared after them for a long minute, then dropped into his seat once more with a little groan and wondered if he shouldn’t have let Magda disown her mother after all.

* * *

Erend had worried how Lira would handle the sudden dismissal of her father from the village, but Magda undertook the effort to explain what had happened herself and apparently painted the ealdorman in a good light. Other than a few days of uncertainty in the face of this new living arrangement on the child’s part, Lira handled it quite well and bounced back to her usual cheerful self quickly, seeming more attached to Erend than ever. Out from under her father’s oppressive shadow, the girl flourished, becoming more and more comfortable in her own skin as the days wound on, and the sight of her easy smile was like a balm to decades old wounds in the ealdorman’s heart.

He and Ersa had been forced to weather years of abuse and paid a bloody price to drag themselves out of their terrible living situation; the fact that Lira wouldn’t have to do the same did more to put the restless, bitter resentment Erend had been harboring towards his father at ease than anything else ever had. Even news of Branuf’s death.

The unintended side effect of this, however, was Magda suddenly becoming completely unable to keep up with Lira. Even work in the kitchens wasn’t enough to keep her busy, and she was prone to pestering her mother and the other women with questions in such a quantity when she _was_ helping that it was driving them all up the wall. Desperate, Magda begged Erend to take the girl in hand, apparently believing Lira’s newfound wildness came from lack of a steady father figure in her life, a thought seconded by Ilsa.

The elder’s assertion that he had a father’s fondness for Lira was something Erend had to admit wasn’t far off the mark when he took the time to actually consider his own actions and motivations. It was a startling realization for the man, to say the least, considering he’d never been particularly keen on having children of his own in the past. Then again, he’d never had any positive father figures in his own life, so the concept that it might be a rewarding experience wasn’t something he’d considered until he’d met Lira and found himself taking her under his proverbial wing without a second thought. He’d grown to want to protect her so much that he’d confronted her father when he’d dared to lay a hand on her, and he would happily stick his neck out to make sure Lira got a chance to apprentice in whatever craft she wanted, never mind that both things flew in the face of Oseram tradition.

Seeing Lira flourishing brought the ealdorman a sense of happiness and deep contentment that almost frightened him sometimes. He could feel the chains of obligation winding ever tighter around him, inevitably bringing his existence as a free agent in the story of his own life to its unavoidable conclusion. It had started the moment Ersa had decided she wanted to remain in Meridian after the Liberation and formed the Vanguard. But even then Erend had been able to tell himself he could leave any time he wanted, just as soon as something else caught his fancy. Nothing ever had, though.

And so the first shackle had clicked into place without his even noticing it.

The second had been becoming Captain of the Vanguard himself in the wake of Ersa’s death. He’d been more aware of that one, and while he hadn’t resented it out of honor for his sister’s memory, it had pinched all the same. His friendship with Avad had made it easy to ignore, however.

The moment Erend had decided to throw his lot in with Aloy and her battle against Hades, he’d bound his fate to hers and happily so. The third shackle was one he’d accepted without her having to ask, and its existence reassured more than it chafed. Whatever happened in the future, the memory of that day and the way they’d changed the fate of the world would stay with him forever, engraved on the very steel of his soul.

Accepting his role as Ealdorman had been the death knell for Erend’s freedom, and every day he spent in Ironwood, loving it a little bit more and growing it into something greater than what it had once been, was another word in its eulogy. As the man stood on the village wall, finally rebuilt and stronger than ever, he stared out across the valley and couldn’t find it in himself to resent the change that had taken over his life. Where he’d been fierce and unpredictable as a wildfire in his youth, age and responsibility had finally succeeded in containing him, but they didn’t dim his fire. Rather, they acted as a forge, allowing Erend to turn all that energy to productive ends like providing a place for his clan and extending his protection to his cousin to save her the same suffering he’d experienced as a child.

“Uncle Erend?”

The ealdorman glanced down to find Lira at his elbow, cheeks flushed from having run up the stairs to the top of the wall. “Back already, little spark? Sure you gave Dorund my whole message?”

Given Magda’s inability to keep up with her, and the fact that it’d be another two years before she was old enough to become a proper apprentice, Erend had opted to make Lira his assistant. Mostly she ran messages for him, but she continued to help in the kitchen before dinner as well. She’d proved quite reliable so far, and the ealdorman was glad to have her; it certainly saved him a lot of running about and shouting after people.

“Of _course_ ,” the girl protested with a huff that made the man grin.

Erend ruffled her hair and said, “Just checking. What’d he say?”

“It’ll take him some time to find the records for the old harvests since everything got moved around and damaged, but he’ll try and find them.”

The ealdorman sighed through his nose and nodded. The best way to predict future harvest yields was by looking over the cycle of seasons that had come before, or so he had been learning, but Ironwood’s records were proving incomplete at best, making it difficult to plan ahead. For once, though, Erend couldn’t blame this on ealdormen that had come before him, not when the village had kept getting attacked by the Carja or random machines every time they’d turned around for the last decade. Honestly, it was impressive they’d managed to save as much as they had.

“Well,” Erend began as he glanced down at Lira with a smile, “What say-” but he was interrupted by the distant call of a horn from one of the sentries posted on lookout further down the valley. 

He went still as he listened, expression dropping into a frown as the notes echoed through the trees.

“What does that one mean?” Lira asked with a frown of her own as she tugged on the sleeve of Erend’s coat.

Unlike the familiar calls for friend or foe that were more frequently used by the sentries, this was one of the much less common ‘unknown’ warning calls. The sentries had seen _something_ on the approach, but either hadn’t been able to identify what it was, or at the very least, its intent. “Means something is coming, but they don’t know what,” Erend explained, then leaned over the inside edge of the wall, put his fingers to his lips, and let out a sharp whistle to get the gate guard’s attention. The man snapped around to look at him and the ealdorman gestured for him to close the gate, which he jumped to do immediately with the help of a few others near at hand. Turning back to Lira, he pushed her lightly towards the stairs and said, “You get back to the lodge until we know what’s going on,” in a tone that brooked no argument.

Lira looked like she wanted to do just that, but one look at the serious set of Erend’s expression silenced her objections. “Yes sir,” she said with a sigh, then turned and did as she was told.

As soon as the ealdorman was certain she was following instructions, he started off along the wall at a brisk pace until he reached the section over the gate where other guards, bows at the ready, were waiting. They saluted Erend as he joined them and he nodded, then they all settled into a tense silence as they watched the distant tree-line that lasted for several minutes. Finally, there was movement at the head of the road leading to the gate from the forest that resolved itself into-

“A strider?” One of the men said aloud, putting voice to everyone’s confusion.

Well, everyone but Erend’s.

“By itself?” said one of the other guards as he squinted at the distant figure. “What’s wrong with its back?”

Feeling as though his heart had come to a dead stop in his chest the moment the strider had stepped out into plain view, Erend released a ragged breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and said, “Open the gates.” The guards turned to look at him, baffled and alarmed, but the ealdorman ignored them as he leaned over the inside of the wall again and shouted, “Open the gates!” to the gate guard.

“Sir?” the man asked, confused by Erend’s sudden change of mind, as well as the wide grin on his face.

“You heard me, man!” the ealdorman shouted as he ran along the wall to the nearest ladder and slid down it without bothering to use the rungs. The guard only managed to get the huge, heavy door open a couple of feet by the time Erend reached him, but it was more than enough for the man to duck through. He slowed his brisk pace just long enough to turn and glance up the walls where the guards still had their bows trained on their visitor. “Put those down! Don’t you recognize the hero of Meridian when you see her?” he demanded with a fierce, joyful grin as he turned once more to find Aloy, mounted gracefully on the back of a strider, just a stone’s throw away.

Any other day the machine might have given him pause, but after so long apart from the woman he loved, he barely gave it a glance as he hurried to her side.

“Aloy,” he breathed, grinning like a fool and not caring a whit as the huntress brought her mount to a halt and smiled down at him. “You’re here,” Erend said, stating the obvious and yet so convinced he must be dreaming that he couldn’t stop himself.

“Told you I’d come visit,” Aloy said and reached out to him, eyes crinkling at the corners as her own smile widened.

Erend caught her hand and relished the warmth of her skin against his, finally convinced that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t dreaming after all.

“A personal visit from the great machine tamer,” he said, voice light and teasing, heart hammering madly behind his ribs as his eyes traced her dear, familiar features. “What an honor.”

Gods of the East _and_ the West, he hadn’t thought it possible, but Erend was quite certain Aloy was even prettier now than when he’d last laid eyes on her in Meridian.

Suffering an acute sort of rapture induced madness, the ealdorman pressed a kiss to the back of her hand like some noble in the court of the Sun-King. Erend regretted it almost immediately, wondering just what had gotten into him, but lucky for his pride, Aloy didn’t react with disgust or annoyance when he cast his gaze up to her face once more. Rather, she only look surprised for a moment before a laugh overtook her (oh, how glorious to hear that dear laugh again!) and the woman asked, “What’s gotten into you, Erend?”

“Nothing,” he answered quickly with a self-deprecating grin. “Ignore me, I’m just real damn pleased to see you, is all,” Erend said, then released his hold on her hand and went to give her knee, sitting just below his shoulder height, a fond pat instead.

The moment he did, however, Aloy flinched and hissed in pain, making the man snatch his hand back as if he’d been burned. “What’s wrong?” He asked, voice and expression immediately serious as he noted the way his friend had gone pale at the contact, sweat beading on her brow as the woman forced herself to take a few steadying breaths.

Aloy gave him an almost sheepish look as she admitted, “Twisted my knee pretty bad a few days back. Thought it’d be better by now, but-”

“But you pushed yourself and kept traveling on it instead of laying low,” Erend finished for her as he fixed his friend with a disapproving frown that actually made her wince.

“Honestly, I didn’t think it was quite this bad until this morning, and by then I knew I was close to the village, so…” her words petered off and she shrugged, making the man sigh.

“We’ll get you taken care of,” he promised, then looked back towards the gate with a thoughtful frown. “It’d be best if you rode in, but-”

Aloy shook her head and carefully swung her good leg over the strider’s back so she sat side-saddle facing him. “No, I don’t want to frighten anyone. I’ll leave it here; I should be able to walk if you’ll give me your shoulder.”

“Always,” Erend replied immediately as he reached both hands up towards the woman to help her down to the ground. Unfortunately, the ealdorman was so focused on easing her descent that he missed the subtle blush that bloomed across her cheeks, though it disappeared just as quickly when her boots hit the ground and she went pale with pain once more. The small cry that escaped Aloy in spite of her best efforts to stifle it cut the man like a knife and he immediately slipped an arm around his friend to help take the weight off her bad leg. “You alright?” he asked, worry written in every line of him.

Breath ragged and her skin downright clammy from the pain, Aloy nevertheless managed to muster a weak smile for the man, and said, “I’ll be alright.” The look in his gray eyes said he wasn’t buying it, and if her knee hadn’t felt like it was on fire at the moment, she probably would have laughed. Still, good friend and fellow warrior that Erend was, he decided to indulge her pride for the moment and refrained from calling her a liar to her face.

Despite her best efforts, though, Aloy couldn’t keep up the facade, and even with Erend taking more than half her weight, they barely made it two steps before a shudder rocked her head to toe and the woman was forced to grit her teeth against a pained grunt.

“Nope,” Erend declared, bringing them both to a stop. Aloy glanced at him, pale brow knit in confusion as he gave her a stern, but apologetic look and said, “I’m going to carry you in, alright? Being picked up is gonna hurt like a mother but it’ll save pain in the long run.”

Aloy’s eyes went wide and she said, “You don’t have to, I can manage-” but he cut her off.

“No you can’t,” he said with a bluntness that made the woman blink. In a gentler tone, he added, “Just let me help, Aloy.” When she continued to hesitate, he added, “It’s that or I get the boys out here with a stretcher.”

“Alright!” she relented, far more averse to the thought of being carried like and invalid by strangers than by her friend. It wasn’t as though she didn’t think he was strong enough, after all; it was just… well, she couldn’t remember ever being carried by _anyone_. Not since she was a child still small enough to beg Rost for piggy-back rides when she caught him in a good enough mood, anyways.

Erend flashed her a relieved smile, then said, “Alright, brace yourself.” Aloy slipped her arm up and around her friend’s shoulders, then grit her teeth and nodded when she was ready. The ealdorman bent, then scooped her up into his arms in one fluid movement that, while smooth, still sent a lance of agony shooting up from Aloy’s injured right knee.

For all her effort, a cry escaped her, tears springing to her eyes as Erend did his best to settle his grip on her with as little jostling as he could manage. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he hissed sympathetically. “I’ve got you now, it’ll be okay,” he reassured her as he started walking towards the gate as fast as he could manage without jogging Aloy’s leg.

Trembling a little as she tried to shake off the pain, Aloy forced a weak smile to her lips for his sake and said, “I’m alright.” The worried look he gave her made the woman’s heart flutter and her smile managed to turn more genuine as she settled in his arms.

It took only a moment for them to reach the gate where Aloy was embarrassed to find several guards who had obviously watched their exchange waiting. Luckily, the distance was such they probably hadn’t heard anything, but being the object of such close scrutiny as she rested in their ealdorman’s arms left the huntress feeling distinctly uncomfortable. It was almost enough to distract her from the pain in her leg.

“You two go collect her things and bring them to the main lodge,” Erend instructed them in a tone Aloy had only ever heard him use with his fellow soldiers in the Vanguard. When they hesitated, eyes flickering uncertainly to the strider and back to their ealdorman, the man rolled his eyes and insisted, “It’s not going to _bite_ you,” then paused and looked down at her to ask in a quieter, less certain tone, “It’s not going to bite them, right?”

The question was enough to make Aloy laugh again and, sympathizing with Erend’s men, said, “As long as you don’t try and attack it, it won’t attack you.”

Her assertion didn’t seem to put them much at ease, but Erend didn’t appear to be willing to stand around waiting for them to feel better about their task, so he simply said, “Have her stuff up at the lodge in five minutes or I’ll put you all on night watch for a month,” then strode away, confident that would be enough to spur them to action.

Aloy peered over Erend’s shoulder and saw the men rush off to do as they were told, though their pace definitely slowed as they drew nearer her strider. They quickly fell out of sight, however, so the huntress turned her attention to their surroundings, curious about just what sort of place her friend’s village was.

The buildings were all fairly standard Oseram make, though some of the newer ones, those that had been rebuilt since Erend’s return, she assumed, had a Carja flair that made them unique in all her travels. The outer wall had a distinctly _fresh_ look to it that told Aloy her friend and the people he now ruled over had been very busy indeed in the months they’d been apart. The people themselves were quite different from the other Oseram settlements Aloy had passed through on her way to Ironwood as well, no doubt thanks to so many of them having spent so much time in the Sundom. The clothing was more mixed, and while there were fewer individuals decked out in full armor the way they were in Pitchcliff and Freeheap, there were more than she’d seen inside the Claim. Particularly the women. Aloy was relieved to see no shortage of them wearing at least light armor and weapons as they went about their business; it meant Erend had likely been at least _partially_ successful in bringing changes to his home village.

As Erend carried her through the heart of Ironwood, clearly making for the large building on the hill at its center, Aloy realized that while she was observing the villagers, _they_ were all just as intent in observing her. Some hurried off, no doubt keen to spread the news that their ealdorman had been seen carrying a strange woman bridal style through the town…

Still, there wasn’t much to be done about it now, so Aloy turned her attention back to Erend instead. Her friend’s face had a serious set, though his expression lightened fractionally when he caught her looking and asked, “Doing alright? We’re almost there now.”

“I’m fine,” she said truthfully. Her leg still ached a little with every step the man took, but it was far less painful than when she’d tried walking with his assistance.

If Aloy were being totally honest with herself, she might even admit that it felt rather… _nice_ being carried by Erend. She’d always known he was strong, you could tell at a glance just how much muscle he carried on him, and she’d seen it all put to good use in battle more than once. A man couldn’t swing a war hammer with the sort of power and grace her friend managed without some serious strength behind it, after all. Even so, she was impressed that he didn’t appear to be straining under her weight in the slightest; lean though she was, Aloy knew she wasn’t light.

The whole endeavor was doing funny things to Aloy’s stomach and she found herself tempted to let her head drop to rest against his shoulder, but she resisted. One arm hooked around Erend’s neck, the huntress let the fingers of her hand play over the soft fur of his coat’s collar and thought about how _relieved_ she had been to see the man when he came out the gate to greet her with a wide, enthusiastic smile. Just the sight of him had been enough to lift a here-to-fore unrecognized weight from her shoulders, but it wasn’t until now, as she glanced up at him from under her lashes to avoid attracting his attention again, that Aloy began to suspect the reason behind it.

She trusted Erend in a way she trusted so very few; they’d tracked killers together, prevented a bombing, fought side-by-side in battle… Aloy would do anything to protect her friend, and she knew implicitly that he would do the same for her come hell or high water, murderous machines or brainwashed death cults. She could count on one hand the number of people she could say that of; maybe even just the one finger since Rost died.

And that, she thought, must be the source of her relief when she’d finally seen Erend again. She’d anticipated being _happy_ to see him of course, he was one of her best friends and she had missed his easy company and admittedly charming manners in the months they’d been apart. Badly injured and in pain as the huntress was, though, seeing one of the few people she trusted to watch her back unconditionally and… and take _care_ of her coming out to greet her had almost been enough to bring tears to her eyes.

How many times since she’d left the Sacred Lands had Aloy wound up injured and alone with only the skills Rost had taught her to keep herself in one piece? More than she’d care to admit, for sure. The huntress had managed to avoid breaking any major bones, but she was fairly certain she’d fractured a few ribs in the past, though there was little to do about those other than give them time to heal on their own. Aloy had lost count of the stitches she’d had to give herself, the poultices applied, the bitter medicines made and drank… all on her own without another soul to help for miles around, or to even keep watch over her in case of a machine attack.

It was exhausting having to be so on guard all the time, particularly when injured, but in the here and now, with Erend carrying her so effortlessly, Aloy was finally able to relax. She felt safe at last; protected in a way that had nothing to do with the strong walls of the village or the buildings within, and everything to do with the man that oversaw them all.

Aloy did let her head drop against Erend’s shoulder then, forehead winding up pressed against the warm, lightly stubbled skin of his throat.

“Still alright?” he checked in when she shifted, and Aloy could feel the low buzz of his voice at the point where their skin touched. His words echoed up from the depths of his chest and into her in a fashion she found curiously soothing.

The sensation drew a small smile to her lips. “I’m fine,” she reassured him again, then lifted her head to look at him and said, “I like the beard, by the way. Looks good on you.”

He grinned broadly and said, “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, her own smile widening as her pulse quickened and she dared to reach up and let her fingertips graze lightly over the coarse hairs along his jaw. Erend had always maintained an impressive mustache, but (and maybe this was just her Nora upbringing making her biased) she quite preferred him with the full beard now that she’d seen it on him. He wore it well.

“Well, I was going to shave it, but if the Annointed One likes it-” he mused in a faux thoughtful tone, though he had been considering no such thing. In fact, the sensation of her fingernails dragging lightly over his skin had been enough to send the man’s thoughts scattering wildly like so many leaves in an autumn breeze, and if he hadn’t already been so hyper-focused on carrying the woman as carefully as possible, he might have stumbled. As it was, his already racing heart was threatening to give out altogether, especially when she allowed her head to drop back against his shoulder once again. The small gesture of implicit trust was enough to turn already-burning desire to protect Aloy into an outright bonfire, and Erend tightened his grip on her reflexively.

Her pinching his arm in retribution for using her least favorite title didn’t diminish the sensation in the least, though it did make him grin.

They made it to the courtyard below the lodge and started up the stairs where the ealdorman could see Lira already dashing out to meet him. The girl’s eyes widened when she saw the woman in his arms and she froze comically in place, drawing a chuckle from Erend while Aloy regarded the girl curiously.

“Lira, go fetch Aunt Bana,” he instructed his cousin as they gained the top of the stairs and headed for the door of the lodge. “Tell her we have a guest with an injured knee.”

Rather than do immediately as she was told, Lira followed after him, eyes riveted on Aloy. “Is that-” she began, only to be cut off when the ealdorman shot her a stern glance.

“Introductions later. Go do as I said and be quick about it.”

Much to Aloy’s amusement, the little girl groaned in frustration, then rushed away down the steps in a helter-skelter fashion that might have alarmed the huntress if it hadn’t so sharply reminded the woman of herself as a child. “Who was that?” she asked Erend curiously, turning a little in his grip to glance behind them, though the child was already out of sight thanks to the stairs.

“My cousin, Lira,” her friend mused as he entered the already open door of the lodge and glanced around. “Guess you could say she’s my assistant, too,” he added with a huff of amusement.

“Assistant?” Aloy remarked, “You really are moving up in the world, aren’t you?” she teased, smiling as she managed to get a laugh out of the man.

“So you’d think, but I’m working harder than ever,” Erend groused good-naturedly. Before Aloy could respond, however, his attention shifted and he called, “Magda!”

A woman just a few years older than Erend paused in the doorway of what the huntress realized was the kitchen as they approached, eyes going wide at the sight of them. Her gaze trailed over Aloy where she rested in the ealdorman’s arms, and lingered on her hair, brows slowly creeping higher. “Yes, Ealdorman?”

Aloy suspected the stranger had a dozen and one questions (not that she blamed her), but Erend didn’t seem interested in entertaining them at the moment, only asked her, “Which of the guest rooms are open?”

Magda frowned thoughtfully, then said, “The one two doors down from you should be clear. Rigun and his family just moved out a few days ago.”

Erend nodded then started for the nearest stairs after gesturing with a nod for the woman to lead the way, which she did with celerity.

“Dare I ask what you’ve gotten into this time?” Magda asked as she opened the door to a tidy looking bed chamber and stepped inside to hold it open so they could enter after.

“For once in my life, I can say ‘nothing’ with total honesty,” Erend mused with a little grunt as he turned them both sideways so he could carry Aloy through the door and deposit her on the bed with the utmost care. “Unlike my huntress here,” the ealdorman teased the redhead with a smile.

“I was only on my way to visit _you_ ,” Aloy objected, trying and failing to ignore the way her heart leaped in her chest when Erend said ‘ _my_ huntress’. The way Magda was watching them from the door with one eyebrow inching higher by the moment certainly wasn’t helping.

“Yeah, yeah,” Erend said with a dismissive snort, then turned to the other woman and said, “I sent Lira for Bana, will you send her up when she arrives?”

Magda nodded, but as Erend turned immediately back towards Aloy, the huntress was the only one to see the way she hesitated in the doorway, as if on the verge of speaking, only to rethink it and leave.

“We should get your boots off,” Erend said and immediately began unlacing the one on her right foot, threatening to make Aloy flush again.

“I can do it myself!” she objected, sitting up and trying to swat his hands away, only to have hers swatted away instead.

The ealdorman pointed at her left boot and said, “Do that one if you’re so fussed about it, you won’t be able to unlace this one without bending your knee, and that’s the last thing you need to be doing right now.”

Thoroughly chastised, Aloy grimaced but turned her attention to her left boot as suggested, knowing he was right. Still, it was very awkward having someone else remove her shoe for her; intimate, even. Erend’s fingers were deft but cautious as they undid the leather bindings and loosed them, then carefully gripped Aloy’s calf with one hand and gently removed the boot with the other.

The man’s expression was deadly serious as he worked, and unused to having someone willing and able to help her at her lowest moments, Aloy found that the heat in her face simply refused to dispel. In fact, it threatened to deepen when he glanced up at her and smiled when he was done. “Here, let me,” he offered gently when the huntress had managed to unlace her left boot but found herself unable to remove it easily without potentially bending her other knee for leverage. Aloy hesitated, then relented and allowed him to do the same as the first, watching as he took both her boots and put them on the floor before reaching behind her and adjusting the pillows so she’d be able to sit up more comfortably.

“Erend, you don’t have to do all this,” Aloy tried to protest again. As much as she’d been subconsciously longing to have someone willing to take care of her when she needed it, actually getting her wish was proving to be surprisingly overwhelming.

The man blinked down at her, a hard to decipher smile tugging at his full lips as he dropped into a crouch next to the bed so she wouldn’t have to crane her neck to look at him. “I know,” he said simply, smile turning earnest, and maybe just a little bit shy as he added, “But I want to.”

Aloy stared at him, ears burning and wondering just how she was supposed to say no when he was looking at her like that. She couldn’t of course, and the man knew it, hence his triumphant grin when she sighed and sagged back against the pillows.

Before he could say anything else, however, the sound of someone approaching drew Erend’s attention to the door, and with some relief he saw his Aunt Bana there, healer’s bag in hand. Her keen blue eyes took in the scene at a glance; an unfamiliar red-headed woman stretched out on the bed looking a curious mix of flushed and pale, Erend crouched at her side with a protective air about him. She’d have questions for him later, he could tell, and so would Magda, but consummate healer that she was, Bana put aside her personal curiosity and focused on her new patient first and foremost.

“What happened here?” the woman asked as she stepped into the room and set her bag down, then waved Erend away from his spot next to the bed, which he quickly vacated in her favor.

Aloy glanced his direction uneasily and the man gave her a reassuring smile as he grabbed a chair from the other side of the room and brought it over for his aunt to sit on while she worked. “This is my Aunt Bana, she’s the village healer,” he explained. “Aunt Bana, this is Aloy.”

Understanding passed over the healer’s features and a small smile pulled at her shapely lips. “Ah, it all makes sense now.”

“What does?” Aloy asked, brow knit in confusion as she looked from aunt to nephew. Now that she saw the two of them side-by-side, there _was_ an obvious family resemblance between Erend and the strikingly lovely older woman.

Bana glanced up at her nephew and the ealdorman frowned in warning, but she paid it no heed as she turned her attention back to Aloy and said, “My nephew is a very kind man, but I can’t think of anyone else he’d throw the gates wide for then personally carry all the way to the lodge than the woman that-”

Erend clapped a hand over his aunt’s mouth and with a pained look said, “Have mercy, woman, please.”

Blue eyes crinkling in amusement, Bana removed his hand and finished as though she’d never been interrupted in the first place. “-than the woman that helped him recover his sister.” Still seated, the healer gave Aloy a small half-bow of gratitude herself while Erend relaxed fractionally and huffed as he raked his fingers absently through his hair.

“Oh, no, please,” Aloy said quickly, feeling a little at a loss at the exchange, and then embarrassed by Bana’s bow. “I wish I could have done more. I-” She stopped mid-sentence when Erend unexpectedly placed a hand on her head, prompting her to look up at him to find the man smiling down at her. There was a tinge of sadness there, but mostly understanding. It was a conversation they’d had before, and a look was all they needed to understand one another. Aloy sighed and smiled in turn, deciding not to speak further on the matter, and focused instead on trying not to over-think the way he brushed his hand over her hair before withdrawing it once more.

“So, tell me what happened,” Bana said when the moment had passed, doing them both the kindness of not mentioning the tender exchange, no matter _how_ curious she was.

Aloy cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter to answer the healer. “I got ambushed by a Ravager a few days ago,” she admitted with an embarrassed grimace. Being so close to her destination, the huntress had been pushing herself and her mount at the cost of her awareness of her surroundings, so she’d been totally blindsided when the machine rushed them from the tree-line. “I was riding a strider at the time, which was lucky since it took the brunt of the attack, but my leg wound up pinned underneath it when it hit the ground, which was less so. I managed to drag myself out from under it and kill the Ravager, but I think I wound up twisting my right knee pretty badly in the process,” Aloy explained with a frown down at the offending joint.

“Fire and spit, woman, you really are going to give me heart failure one of these days,” Erend muttered under his breath as he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

The huntress made a face at him and Bana snorted delicately as she leaned over and opened her bag. “As if you’re one to talk.”

Erend gave his aunt an incredulous look and Aloy laughed. “Are you kidding me?” he asked and gestured at his friend. “Killed a Ravager after being pinned under a Strider she was _riding_ ,” the ealdorman said with an emphatic gesture.

Bana countered it by pointing at him and saying, “Fell down a hole and disappeared for three days then showed up in another village a valley over with pockets full of Old World trinkets when you were nine.”

“That’s not-”

“Thrown over a cliff into the river while Watcher wrangling, barely avoiding breaking your head on the rocks below when you were fifteen.”

“One time!”

“What is _Watcher wrangling_ ,” Aloy asked, amused to no end by Erend’s increasingly flustered objections.

Bana looked at her and explained, “An extremely foolish hobby the local boys have where they dare one another to fight a watcher bare handed.”

“Trick is to jump on its back to keep it from hopping around and get your hands in the wires at the base of its head so you can pull it back,” Erend explained, distracted from his earlier embarrassment as he pantomimed the process.

He was interrupted by his aunt who continued for him, “Which is what he was doing when he lost his grip and got thrown-”

“Over a cliff and into the river,” Aloy finished with a laugh. Her mirth didn’t last long, though, as she forgot her injury and bent her knee reflexively, sending a lance of agony shooting up her leg that left her sagging back against the pillows, gasping.

“Aloy,” Erend said, own expression pained as he tried to move to her side, only for his aunt to catch his arm and gently push him away.

“Go about your duties, Ealdorman, I’m more than capable of handling this,” Bana said, voice gentle but firm.

Her nephew frowned and said, “I can help- just tell me what you need.”

Bana arched a brow at the man and said, “I _need_ you to leave so the young lady can remove her pants to let me get a better look at her knee, Erend.”

Further words of objection already on the ealdorman’s lips, his aunt’s words caught up with him and he stopped, then shut his mouth so quickly his teeth clicked. “Ah,” he said, glancing awkwardly between the two women. “Right.”

Confused, Aloy asked, “What’s wrong with that?” She knew she must have stumbled across another one of those little social cues she’d never learned to pick up on growing up with Rost when both Oseram turned to look at her across a cultural gap that felt a mile wide.

Bana turned and gave her nephew an arch look that immediately sent all the blood rushing to his face and he backed away sharply. “It’s not like that!” he insisted fervently. “I never- it’s a _Nora thing_ , Auntie, I _swear_. Saw plenty of it when I went East on a diplomatic mission with one of Avad’s priests-”

The healer’s brow only hitched higher at his words and Erend looked ready to swallow his own tongue. “Saw plenty _what_ , dear nephew?” Bana asked, words honey-sweet as she looked up at him.

Desperate, Erend looked at Aloy for help, but his friend only shrugged and so the man decided to beat a hasty retreat instead. “I uh… meeting. Right, pretty sure I have to get to a meeting,” he said, convincing absolutely no one as he spun on his heel and headed for the door, only to be brought up short when he spotted Lira peering in from the hallway. The child smiled sheepishly up at him when she was caught; no doubt she’d been there for some time, listening in on their conversation.

“Sorry,” she said meekly, then yelped as the man grabbed her up, threw her over his shoulder, and started off down the hallway.

He came back almost as quickly, though, and poked his head into the room and said, “Just shout if you need anything,” then used his freehand to close the door.

Distantly, Bana and Aloy could hear the ringing of Erend’s boots against the floorboards, as well as Lira’s excited, “Is that _really_ Aloy, Uncle Erend?”

Neither could hear his reply, but when the healer turned back towards Aloy, the huntress was surprised to see a pleased smile on the woman’s face rather than annoyance, or even amusement. Bana must have seen the question in her eyes as she explained, “I was just thinking he hasn’t called me ‘Auntie’ since he was a boy.” She gave herself a shake then, and turning professional once more, said, “Alright, let's take a look at that knee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aloy is here at laaaast! Hope you guys enjoyed! make sure to drop a comment and let me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from you guys!


	9. Out of Love

Erend made it as far as the base of the stairs before he stopped, Lira still slung casually over his shoulder, at a loss for what to do next; he knew he wouldn’t be able to get a lick of work done until he’d had some word from his aunt on the extent of Aloy’s injuries. Still, even he had his pride, and the ealdorman knew he’d never hear the end of it if he lurked about at the bottom of the stairs waiting for news. For all he’d ignored the looks the villagers had been giving him and Aloy when he’d carried her to the lodge from the gate, Erend had still been  _ aware _ of them, and could guess at the rumors already flying through the small community. The last thing he needed was for people to see him waiting around like a new father expecting his first child…

The very thought threatened to send him red in the face again. No, better he make himself scarce; his aunt knew where to find him when she was done.

“Uncle  _ Erend _ ,” Lira complained with a huff, kicking her legs a little where they dangled, bringing the ealdorman back to himself.

“Sorry, little spark,” he apologized and set the girl down on her feet once more, watching with some amusement as the girl huffed again and straightened her skirts.

Looking both anxious and excited, Lira asked, “Is Aloy going to be okay?”

A smile pulled at Erend’s lips and he ruffled his cousin’s hair fondly. “She’ll be fine, especially now that Aunt Bana’s seeing to her,” he said with more confidence than he felt. He didn’t doubt his aunt’s abilities, or his friend’s resilience, but when it came to Aloy, that fretful, protective streak he’d been nursing since he was a child simply refused to be silenced. Still, he kept that to himself and told Lira, “She’s the strongest person I know, she’ll bounce back in no time now that she’s got people to look after her while she rests.”

“Can I help? I want to help!” Lira proclaimed energetically, expression one of fierce determination.

It was enough to bring a grin to the ealdorman’s face and he said, “Alright, then. You wait here for Aunt Bana and let her know I went to my office when she’s done, and ask her if she needs you to do anything for her.” Lira nodded solemnly and immediately took a seat on the bottom step of the staircase to wait for Bana’s return. “After that, you go back to helping your mama in the kitchen, alright? We’ll come up with something more for you to do later.” His cousin nodded again and Erend gave her hair another fond ruffle before heading off towards his office.

He tried to get some work done, he really did, but in the end, Erend spent the better part of the next half hour pacing distractedly around the room, pausing only to stare out the window for minutes at a time, so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn’t really  _ see _ anything at all.

A knock at the door made the man start and turn from his absent consideration of the sunny day outside and immediately call, “Enter!”

To his intense relief  _ and _ trepidation, the door opened to reveal his aunt, who immediately closed it again behind her then moved across the room to join him at the window. “How is she?” Erend asked, concern writ plain in every line of his face, heart racing in spite of his attempt to keep calm as he waited for the healer’s prognosis.

Bana smiled softly up at her nephew and patted his arm in reassurance. “She’ll be just fine with rest, Erend,” the healer said, only barely managing to mask her amusement when the ealdorman sagged sideways against the window frame in sheer relief at the news. “She twisted her knee pretty badly, though,” she continued and Erend’s brow immediately furrowed as his concern returned full force. “It’s possible there’s some minor tearing to the muscle or the ligaments, but nothing that won’t heal on it’s own so long as she keeps off of it for a couple of weeks.”

Erend grunted at the news and winced sympathetically for his friend. “She’s not going to like that,” he remarked and his aunt nodded her agreement.

“She didn’t,” the woman mused, blue eyes glittering as she watched her nephew, amused by how well he seemed to know her patient. “But I think I was able to make her see reason when I told her that pushing herself too soon could result in permanent damage  _ and _ a slower healing time.”

“Still, knowing her there’s no way she’ll keep in bed for more than a day,” Erend mused with a wry snort, then glanced back at his aunt. “Better find her some crutches before then.”

Bana frowned and said, “It’d really be better if she stayed in bed-” but was interrupted by her nephew before she could finish.

“ _ I know _ , Auntie” the man said with a tired wave of a hand that ended with him absently pinching the bridge of his nose. “But I also know _ her _ , and trust me when I say she’s going to wind up bored to tears and wandering about the place whether we like it or not, so we might as well give her the tools to do it safely.” Bana still looked unconvinced, so Erend sighed and added, “I’ll assign Lira to keep an eye on her and get her whatever she needs to at least cut down on how much she moves around. She’s less likely to try anything if she knows there’s someone around to tattle on her.”

“Who?” Bana asked archly, a smile pulling at her lips, “Lira or Aloy?”

Erend barked a laugh as he moved back towards his desk and dropped into his seat. “Both, now that you mention it,” he remarked with some amusement, then looked up at his aunt again and, expression solemn, asked, “Is there anything she needs? Anything I can do?”

Not for the first time since Aloy’s arrival in Ironwood barely an hour ago, Bana found herself wondering at the nature of the other woman’s relationship with her nephew. He’d claimed she was a friend, a comrade in arms, but the healer had already heard from Lira how Erend had carried his ‘friend’ from the gate, and seen for herself the way he’d lingered protectively at the huntress’ bedside. Her nephew was a kindhearted man by nature, but the solicitude he’d shown Aloy, the way he fretted over her and put himself at her service without the woman ever having to ask went above and beyond.

And yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, the way he’d reacted to the idea of being in the room while Aloy undressed didn’t exactly speak to them being lovers.

Looking at her nephew now and the way his gray eyes pleaded with her to provide him some way to be of use to the woman upstairs, all Bana could see was a man in the throes of a deep and abiding love. Her heart gave a pang of sympathy for him, and she wondered how long he had been suffering so. She had no idea if his affections were returned, but it was clear, at the very least, that he had never given them voice; not to the woman in question, anyways.

Perhaps not to anyone, no matter how obvious his affliction was.

Bana fixed Erend with a soft smile and gave his cheek a fond pat. “I gave her some dreamwillow, so she’s sleeping at the moment,” the healer explained. “That’s the best thing for her now. We’ll get her fed when she wakes this evening and then she should take another dose so she’s able to sleep through the night without the pain waking her.”

Erend sighed and nodded, seeming both disappointed and relieved simultaneously. “Thank you for looking after her,” he said, voice low and earnest as he regarded his aunt.

“After all she’s done for our family,” Bana said, “it is every bit my pleasure to assist her in whatever way I can, Erend.”

* * *

Aloy always had hated taking dreamwillow, and as the woman slowly, groggily clawed her way back to consciousness, she was reminded why in excruciating detail. Brow furrowed and gaze blurred as she struggled to focus on the unfamiliar ceiling overhead, the huntress groaned and coughed, feeling like someone had stuffed her mouth full of cotton while she slept.

Her head, too.

Desperate to soothe her aching throat, Aloy rolled onto her side and almost immediately regretted it as pain shot up her right leg, bright and sharp enough to clear the fog from her thoughts. Hissing, the woman sagged back against the pillows to catch her breath for a moment, then looked around again, more carefully this time as the events of that afternoon returned.

Right, she was in Ironwood. She’d seen Erend and he’d brought her to a healer…

Face burning a little at the memory of the way her friend had carried her all the way from outside the village gate up to the room in which she had awoken, Aloy tried to distract herself by looking around the room. The curtains over the window across from the bed were drawn, but it was obvious night had fallen since Bana had dosed her and left her to sleep. There was a small table near at hand that Aloy was relieved to see bore not only a pitcher of water, but an already filled cup that she carefully reached for and brought gratefully to her lips. She emptied it in one go, then refilled the glass and drank half as much again before sighing with relief and setting it aside to turn her attention to the most grievous of her injuries.

Tugging aside the blankets to get a better look at her knee, Aloy was pleased to see that while it was still swollen and achy even when completely still, it didn’t appear quite so bad as it had when she arrived. For all she hated taking dreamwillow, she had to admit that the deep, uninterrupted sleep it granted had probably helped things along.

There was a knock at the door, and recalling Erend’s discomfort at the prospect of being in the same room as her without her pants on, Aloy quickly drew the blankets back up to her waist and called, “Yes?”

The door opened to reveal the same woman that had brought Erend and Aloy to the guest room earlier that day, now with a tray of food in hand; Magda, she recalled.

“Had a feeling you’d be up by now,” Magda said with a small, sympathetic smile as she closed the door behind her then advanced towards the bed. “Then again, Bana’s always been a dab hand at calculating her doses, ” she remarked and moved to put the tray on Aloy’s lap, only to rethink the gesture and place it beside her on the bed instead to avoid jarring her knee.

A little flustered by the service, Aloy said, “Yeah, I just woke up.” Then, looking at the food, added, “Uh- thank you.” Examining the contents of the tray more closely, the huntress’ stomach growled loudly as the tantalizing scent of some sort of stew wafted up from the bowl and her mouth began to water. There were a few thick slices of fluffy bread on the side as well, and rich, golden butter in a little bowl to accompany them; it all  _ looked _ amazing.

“How are you feeling? Any fever or anything?” Magda asked as she took a seat on the chair Bana had left next to the bed, watching as Aloy snatched up one of the slices of bread, quickly spread a thick layer of butter across it with the knife she’d been provided, and took a tremendous bite. Her eyebrows rose fractionally at the happy little noise that escaped the huntress as she chewed blissfully on her mouthful.

Noticing the look, Aloy swallowed and cleared her throat awkwardly, admitting, “Sorry, don’t get much of this out on the trail,” as she held up a second slice of bread before dunking it into the stew and taking a ravenous bite of that as well. “I feel fine, though. Better than I was. No fever,” the huntress added between bites. Realizing they’d never actually been introduced, the redhead paused in her eating and said, “Oh, I’m Aloy, by the way. Erend never really-”

“He didn’t really need to,” Magda mused, gaze flicking to Aloy’s distinctive red hair.

“Ah,” Aloy said, and took another bite of the delicious stew to cover her discomfiture. She was long used to her hair giving away her identity to total strangers, but this… this felt different somehow, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on  _ why _ yet. “Your name is Magda, right?” she asked, relieved when the other woman nodded.

“Yes,” Magda said, then added, “Lira’s my daughter, I think Erend said the two of you had run into her first?”

“We did,” Aloy answered, unable to muffle an amused smile as she added, “She’s very energetic.”

An exhausted look briefly overtook the other woman’s face and Aloy’s smile widened as her suspicion was confirmed. “You have no idea,” Magda said with a sigh.

The huntress chuckled, then, curious, asked, “Erend said she was his cousin, though, does that make you his aunt?” she asked, brow furrowed in thought. Erend was a few years older than Aloy herself, and Magda only looked a few years older than  _ him _ , but was also a good two decades or more younger than her friend’s  _ other _ aunt, Bana… though she supposed it was always possible Magda was only related by marriage. Having no blood-kin herself, Aloy’s grasp on familial structures past the most basic connections had always been a little shaky, and Oseram in particular tended to have the most complicated family trees of all the tribes she’d met…

“Yes,” Magda replied, then, to Aloy’s further confusion, frowned a little and added, “Well, actually… technically  _ not _ . Not anymore.”

“You used to be his aunt but now you aren’t?” Aloy asked, baffled, spoonful of stew frozen halfway to her mouth as she tried to parse out the peculiar statement.

“Ah, well…” Magda began, but paused as she looked uncomfortable, making the huntress regret asking.

“Sorry, you don’t have to explain if you don’t want to,” she said quickly and finished taking the bite she’d paused halfway through to occupy herself.

Magda took a breath and smiled wryly, then shook her head and insisted, “No, it’s alright. Not as if it’s a secret, and I’m sure you’ll hear about it from someone eventually.” Aloy cut her a curious look and a small huff of something bordering on amusement escaped the woman as she continued, “I used to be married to Erend’s uncle, Toruf; his father’s brother. The two of them were never on good terms, and that didn’t change when Erend returned and took Toruf’s place as ealdorman. It all came to a head not too long ago when they got in a fight and Erend made his uncle outcast, which nullified our marriage when I decided to stay in Ironwood with my daughter and mother rather than accompany him into exile.”

Aloy’s eyes went wide at this news, caught completely off guard by the idea that Erend would make use of a tradition he’d called cruel during his time among the Nora when they’d first met. “I’m… surprised,” Aloy confessed, feeling oddly conflicted about her friend in a way she never had before. If you’d asked her five minutes ago if she’d thought Erend would ever support making someone outcast short of them having committed some truly unforgivable offense, she would have said no.

For the first time, the thought that the role Erend had been forced to shoulder for the sake of his people might have changed him occurred to the huntress and she wondered just how deep it ran. He’d seemed like the same man when he’d greeted her at the gate, fretted over her while they waited for the healer…

A hand brushed hers, dragging Aloy’s attention back to the present to find Magda had leaned forward to reach out, a solemn expression on her face. “He didn’t do it lightly,” she insisted quietly. “And for all Toruf fought Erend tooth and nail over every change and decision he made as ealdorman, Erend didn’t banish his uncle for his own sake.” A look of unease crossed her features, but rather than elucidate further on the subject, she added, “Also, my former husband tried to attack the ealdorman with a forester’s ax, so-”

Aloy’s eyebrows shot up, and a laugh escaped her in spite of everything and a smile pulled at her lips as she said, “Well, that _ sounds _ like the kind of trouble Erend would get into.”

Magda smiled in turn and with a small huff of laughter, agreed, “It does, doesn’t it?” She got to her feet then and brushed a hand absently over her skirts to straighten them, then said, “You finish eating and I’ll come back in a little while with some more dreamwillow for you to take.” At Aloy’s grimace, she added, “Healers orders. Bana said it was important you take it so you would get a full night’s sleep without the pain keeping you up.”

The huntress sighed, but nodded reluctantly, knowing they were both right. Even now her knee was beginning to throb, and she had no doubt that it would only grow worse as the night wore on after how hard she’d been on it these last couple of days. Resolving not to act ungrateful just because she was being forced to take her own medicine, Aloy looked up at Magda and said, “Thank you. And thank Bana too, if you see her before I do.”

The other woman’s features softened at her words and she nodded before leaving and shutting the door behind her.

Downstairs in his office, Erend was suffering through the tail end of a minimally productive evening before going down to dinner himself. Paperwork had utterly failed to hold his attention as his thoughts kept straying to the woman convalescing just one floor away in his own home. In the end, he’d given up and decided to finish unpacking the crates he’d brought from Meridian and had put in his office with the intent of filling the empty space and putting his own mark on it. He’d been so busy since arriving he’d never had an opportunity, but as the sun set and Erend looked on the work he’d gotten done, the ealdorman felt a surge of satisfaction.

Most of what had been in the crates had been practical items he’d found worth having near at hand during his stint as captain of the Vanguard, though there had been some decorations from his own home that he hadn’t found a place for in his personal chambers. There were books as well, reference volumes on a wide range of subjects he’d gone out of his way to purchase before leaving the Sundom and then promptly forgotten by the time he arrived at Ironwood and found it completely in shambles. The annoying bit being that he could have made use of several of them over the last couple of months, but, he supposed, there was no point in crying over spilled milk. They sat in plain view on the shelf just behind his desk now in easy reaching distance if he needed them, which he had no doubt he would at some point. The problems around Ironwood had become less about immediately pressing matters of basic survival and more about long term economic effects, crop rotation, and land management, which Erend found infinitely more headache inducing. Anything that could help him parse through  _ that  _ morass was a welcome addition to his work space, in his opinion.

Rummaging through the miscellaneous odds and ends at the bottom of the crate that sat on his desk, however, the ealdorman came upon one final volume he didn’t immediately recognize. Frowning a little he flipped it open to the title page and found that it wasn’t another reference volume at all, it was Ersa’s personal journal.

Feeling as though his heart had stopped dead in his chest, Erend immediately snapped the book closed and tried to put it back where he’d found it, only to pause just shy of actually releasing his hold on the thing. A little tremor echoed up from his hand, through his arm, and into the rest of him so the ealdorman shuddered and was finally forced to take a long, deep breath. Feeling vaguely ill, Erend withdrew the volume from the confines of the crate once more, but hesitated to open the proverbial door into his sister’s innermost thoughts.

Even after all these months, he still wondered at Ersa’s actions leading up to her becoming Dervahl’s captive. Had she  _ really _ left him behind for his own protection, or had that been a deathbed lie to save his feelings when she’d actually felt she couldn’t trust him to have her back? With her journal, though, he might finally be able to find out, for better or for worse…

Desperate for closure in his moment of weakness, whatever the cost, he flipped through the pages to the last entry and read, eyes skimming over the glyphs so quickly they all began to blend together, forcing himself to start all over again.

_ Erend finally got back from his trip to the ‘Savage East’ playing guard to that stuffed-shirt, Irid. Avad was real keen on making peace with the Nora, but sounds like it didn’t go well even if it got off to a promising start thanks to Erend talking down an angry mob. _

_ My little brother; the man with a silver tongue. Guess he can use it for more than just getting himself into trouble when he puts his mind to it. _

_ Anyways, apparently the tribe was attacked during one of their big ceremonies and they lost a lot of their young people; can’t blame ‘em for not wanting to talk peace under those circumstances, even if the Sundom wasn’t to blame for a change. Hustled our delegation out of their sacred lands right quick, according to Erend, and that was the end of it. Well, maybe we’ll try again next year after they’ve had a chance to hunt down whoever’s responsible and had time to cool their heels through winter. _

_ Still, can’t help but feel like something more than that happened. Erend’s always had the soft heart of the two of us, but he still seems more affected by all this than I’d expect. I mean, it’s real sad and all, but it’s not as if he knew these people. _

_ Unless maybe he got to know one real specific like… _

_ Well, only way to find out is to ask! Just have to make sure I get a few drinks in him, first. _

The entry ended there, and when Erend turned the page, it was to find only blank paper. The entire rest of the journal was, in fact, empty, and it was with a keen pang of his heart the man realized his sister never _ had _ gotten the chance to ask him more about what happened in the East. They’d both been busy with the Vanguard after he’d returned, and then Dervahl…

The ealdorman closed the journal with a snap and forced himself to take a deep breath as he brushed a bit of stray moisture from the corner of his eyes. So, apparently he was doomed to never know the truth of what his sister had been thinking that night… Well, maybe it was better that way, in the end.

There was a knock at the door and he sighed, then called, “Come in,” as he set Ersa’s journal back in the crate with the intent to bring it and the other contents back up to his room.

He turned to find Magda standing in the door, hand still on the knob, clearly not intending to stay long. “Your huntress is awake, if you’d like to see her,” she said, the words making Erend’s heart leap in his chest.

“She is not  _ my _ huntress,” he grumbled even as he gave himself a brief once over, plucking a few bits of straw packing from the crate off of his coat.

Magda cut him a skeptical look from her place in the doorway. “That’s not what you said earlier,” she countered, tone carefully neutral, and to his embarrassment, Erend realized that she was right.

The words had just kind of… slipped out; how could they not when he was holding her in his arms the way he had been?

Blush creeping up the back of his neck, Erend pointedly ignored Magda as he briefly ran his fingers through his hair to neaten it, then strode towards the door. When she didn’t immediately step aside so he could leave, the ealdorman cast her a curious glance that she returned with an uncertain frown.

“I-” she began, then paused, before forcing herself to continue, “I took a minute to sit and talk with her when I brought her dinner just now. She asked how we were related and I wound up telling her about Toruf and how you made him outcast.” Erend went very still at her words, confirming Magda’s suspicion that she had mistakenly stumbled upon something between the two friends. Seeing the worry already beginning to grow behind the ealdorman’s gray eyes, she frowned and continued, “Aloy seemed… surprised to hear it, but I was under the impression the practice was much more common among the Nora, or I wouldn’t have mentioned it to her.”

Magda’s gaze turned questioning as she searched Erend’s face, only for the man’s shoulders to slump fractionally as he pinched the bridge of his nose and said quietly, “Aloy was an outcast herself, growing up.” He let his hand dropped and saw the woman’s eyes had gone wide with surprise at the revelation. For all the stories circulated about the famous Nora war maid, few of them included that particular tidbit, so he couldn’t blame Magda for her ignorance. “Needless to say, she’s not a fan of the practice.”

“I’m sorry,” Magda apologized. “I told her that you didn’t do it without reason, and that he attacked while you were unarmed,” she explained, then, after a moment’s thought, offered, “If you want to give her the rest of the details, about why you confronted Toruf in the first place… I don’t mind. I know how much her opinion means to you.”

Surprised, Erend blinked. “I- thanks, Magda.” He rubbed the back of his neck absently, mouth twisting into a wry smile as he glanced back down at her and admitted, “Her opinion  _ does _ mean a lot to me. I don’t-” he sighed, suddenly unsure of what he was trying to say.

Luckily, Magda seemed to understand him and she offered a small smile as she patted his arm and then stepped aside so he could pass. “Go see her. I’ll be up with her next dose of dreamwillow in a bit.”

“Thanks,” he said again as he closed the door to his office and made his way back upstairs, stomach oddly full of butterflies considering he’d just seen Aloy a few hours before.

Then again, seeing Aloy  _ always _ seemed to do that to him, no matter how little time had passed since he last lay eyes on her.

Erend lingered outside her door for a moment, forced himself to take a breath, then knocked and entered at Aloy’s call from within. She was just setting aside the tray Magda must have brought her food on, and the ealdorman was pleased to see that she appeared to have eaten every last bit.

“How are you feeling?” he asked immediately as swept the trailing tail of his coat out of the way before taking the seat next to the bed, eyes searching her own for any hint that Magda’s story had changed her opinion of him in any way.

“Better,” she reassured him with a smile, green eyes searching his face for some hint of the changes she suspected he had undergone in their time apart. Aloy liked to think she had gotten fairly good at reading her friend, and all that she saw in that moment was that, behind his smile he looked tired, and worried, and… sad. “How about you?” she asked.

“Me?” he asked with a blink, then huffed a laugh and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just fine, but then, I’m not the one with the busted knee,” he teased lightly.

Aloy only arched one brow at him, head tilting slightly as she eyed him, and was gratified when her friend broke eye contact first then shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You seem… sad. Did something happen?” she asked quietly as she relented, brow furrowing in concern.

Erend’s eyebrows shot up briefly, then dropped again as he sighed and gave her a wry look, the smile on his features turning self-deprecating. After a moment’s quiet, he admitted, “Forgot how good you were at that.”

“At what?” she asked, frown deepening fractionally in her confusion.

“Seeing right through me,” he clarified with a tired chuckle as he let his head drop forward so he could rub one hand absently over his features before looking at her again. “Got too used to being able to pass myself off with  _ some _ respectability around here, and now here you come to call me on my bluff without a second thought.”

Aloy smiled, though it was soft, rather than cutting as it might have been for anyone else as she said, “Well,  _ someone _ has to. Even if you _ are _ an ealdorman now.” He huffed and laughed, but before he could make a reply that might further distract her, the huntress pressed him, “So, what happened?”

He cut her a chastened smile as he realized she’d so efficiently parried his attempt to obfuscate before he’d even had a chance to try. “I…” he hesitated, shifting uncomfortably in his seat again as he put one of his boots up on the frame of the bed, then said, “I found Ersa’s personal diary when I was packing up our place before leaving Meridian.” Aloy’s eyes widened briefly, but she didn’t comment, forcing him to continue, “I couldn’t bring myself to read it, but I couldn’t just… just get rid of it, either.”

“I understand,” Aloy said quietly with a sympathetic smile as she considering the implications of finding such a thing. She had nothing of the sort of Rost’s, but if she had, the huntress was sure she wouldn’t have been able to get rid of it either. “It’s the last record of her thoughts, like a piece of her she left behind,” she murmured aloud.

“Yes, yes exactly,” Erend said with a relieved smile as his friend caught on to his dilemma so easily. He dropped his foot back to the ground and leaned in closer to Aloy. “I packed it up with the rest of my things, but I’ve been so busy I forgot all about it until I found it again just now while I was unpacking a crate in my office,” he explained, smile fading as his expression turned pained and his voice went tight and a little unsteady. “I’ve always… always wondered if she told me the truth right before she died, that she faced Dervahl alone because she wanted to protect me, not because she didn’t trust me, so I thought-”

Heart aching with sympathy for her friend as she watched him struggle to keep a rein on his emotions, mouth pressed into a thin line and eyes shut tight as one leg bounced with barely suppressed, anxious energy. “You thought she might have written about it in her journal,” Aloy finished for him and he nodded. “And did she?” the huntress prompted gently when he remained quiet for a long moment after.

Erend sucked in a deep breath and shook his head sharply. “No,” he said, the word escaping him more as a pained grunt than a proper word, then leaned over so his elbows rested on his knees and buried his face in his hands. “Last thing she wrote about was worrying over me after I got back from my mission to the East,” he said, voice quiet and pained. He took a slow breath, then let it out in one unsteady woosh before continuing, “And now I’ll never know what she was really thinking that night she went to meet Dervahl, which is probably for the best but it still just-” his fingers curled into fists and he pressed them into his eyes, shoulders hunching as if to protect himself from unseen force as he admitted, “it  _ eats me up inside _ .”

“Erend,” Aloy murmured, every fiber in her being aching in sympathy for her friend and his loss as she reached out and brushed her fingers soothingly over his hair, fingers combing through the long, dark strands of his mohawk. A little shuddering sigh escaped the man at her touch and the huntress found herself wishing more than ever that her knee weren’t injured so she could better turn to face him. She did what she could, though, and said, “I can’t give you any peace of mind about Ersa and what she might have been thinking that night, and I don’t think anyone else can either,” in a gentle, patient voice. “Only you can decide if you’re going to hold onto that in the long run, but I hope you don’t.” Aloy brushed her thumb absently along the peach-fuzz softness of her friend’s scalp and continued, “But I… I know how you feel. I know what it’s like to have questions, to wonder what could have been if you’d done one thing instead of another, chosen different words, been just a little bit faster-”

Erend reached up and gently took her hand from his head and held it in his own as he finally looked up at her again. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes were red when they met hers and he said, “Rost.” She nodded and the sight of tears threatening in the corners of her expressive green eyes cut the man with all the searing pain of a forge-fresh blade. Here he was complaining to her again when she had her own pain, her own worries to carry… without thinking, he pressed his lips to her knuckles in a silent but heartfelt expression of sympathy and devotion as he resolved to take some of that weight from her shoulders. “He did what he had to in order to save your life. He loved you, Aloy; all he wanted was to protect you.”

“I know,” Aloy said and tried to smile in spite of the way her bottom lip trembled, forcing her to press her lips together in a tight line before she lost complete control. That didn’t stop the tears from escaping her eyes to roll down her cheeks, though, and she brushed at them furtively as she took a shaking breath and insisted, “Just like I’m sure  _ you _ know that Ersa did what she did to protect you because she  _ loved _ you.”

Erend’s expression became pained and he dropped his head again, then pressed his brow to the back of her hand, his own hands shaking where they held hers. They were both quiet for a moment, and then in a voice barely above a whisper, he asked, “Do you think it ever gets any easier?”

A shattered, teary little laugh escaped Aloy and she sniffed. “I don’t know. I’ll let you know if I find out, though.”

The ealdorman chuckled weakly and shook his head, then released his hold on her hands and carefully moved to sit beside Aloy on the bed. Before she knew it, the huntress was tucked up against his side, his arm wrapped firmly around her, and her head dropped reflexively to rest against his shoulder before she even had a chance to think about it. Once again, she turned towards him so her brow wound up pressed against the column of his throat, same way she had earlier that day when he’d carried her to the lodge.

They remained like that for a long moment, silently accepting and giving comfort both as each gradually regained their equilibrium. Without even having to try, Aloy’s breathing fell into sync with Erend’s as he held her close and she found her eyes slipping closed as she focused on the sensation and found the pain and sorrow that had reawakened in her at the mention of Rost’s passing slipping away. The cold, bitter tendrils of it slowly, but steadily lifted from her mind by the warm, gentle presence of the man at her side.

“Steel to my soul, I missed you something fierce, Aloy,” Erend murmured quietly against her hair and the huntress found her lips curling into a small, but heartfelt smile, heart fluttering behind her ribs at the deep, pleasant quality of his voice as it reverberated through her.

If her friend’s new responsibilities  _ had _ changed him, Aloy thought as she took his free hand in both of hers and held it tight, they hadn’t swayed his heart in the least, and that was all that truly mattered to her. And if his heart hadn’t changed, then she also trusted it had guided him through whatever metamorphosis he’d been forced to undergo to shoulder the expectations and needs of his clan while still maintaining his kind and thoughtful nature.

He returned her hold on his hand as she replied, “I missed you too, Erend.” A faint blush spread over her cheeks and she was glad he couldn’t see it in their current position when she added, “Even more than I realized.”

A soft, happy sort of hum that made Aloy’s stomach go pleasantly tight escaped the man as he lowered his head so his cheek rested against the crown of her head. She felt him take a breath in preparation to say something, but before he could, there was a knock at the door. The happy hum turned into an annoyed grumble inspiring a soft huff of laughter from the huntress. Erend pulled back from her and they were able to look one another in the eye again, and by unspoken agreement, they parted; him moving back to his chair, and her relaxing into the pillows behind her once more.

The pleasant, peaceful warmth Erend had managed to impart to her stuck with Aloy even as he called for whoever was outside the door to enter, inspiring her to smile at Magda when she entered, in spite of her interruption.

“I put the dreamwillow in some tea with honey this time,” Magda told Aloy as she approached and shooed Erend out of his seat so she could place a steaming mug on the bedside table without reaching over him. “Should make it go down a little-” The woman paused, then, and Aloy gave her a questioning look, wondering what had distracted her. Before she could ask, though, Magda rounded on Erend with a fierce frown and demanded, “Have you been making her  _ cry _ ?”

“What?” the ealdorman asked, jerking back a step at the fierce look his former aunt gave him.

“She’s supposed to be  _ resting _ , Erend! Now you apologize for whatever you did and let the poor woman sleep!”

“I didn’t  _ do _ anything!” Erend insisted at the same time Aloy, flustered by this unexpected confrontation, said, “He didn’t  _ make _ me cry!”

Magda glanced between them, mouth twisting a little in deep suspicion, then huffed and said, “Fine. But you leave her alone and let her sleep anyways,  _ Ealdorman _ ,” as she grabbed Erend by the arm and proceeded to drag him towards the door in spite of his protests. She paused long enough to glance back at Aloy and say, “Make sure you drink  _ all _ of that or Bana will come after you.”

Magda tried to pushed Erend clear out the door, but the man finally put his foot down and in one deft movement, propelled her out first in his stead, buying him a moment to tell Aloy, “Sweet dreams, huntress. Sleep in and I’ll see you when you get up,” with a tender smile before closing the door behind him.

Aloy could hear the pair bickering all the way down the hallway, making her laugh a little to herself as she reached for the mug and steeled her nerves to take her medicine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you guys enjoyed! make sure to drop a comment with your favorite part, I love hearing that from you guys!


	10. New Boots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter finally! Sorry for the wait but I started back at work on the fifth so it's really slowed down my writing process, unfortunately. On the plus side, long chapter!

#  Chapter 10

Aloy could tell by the quality of the light streaming in through the window curtains that it was late in the morning when she finally woke the next day. Feeling groggy, but significantly better than she had on her arrival the day before, she pushed herself carefully upright in bed with a yawn, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and tried to put her hair in some semblance of order before turning her attention to her leg. The swelling had gone down further, though it still twinged sharply when she tried bending it fractionally, reaffirming Bana’s assertion that this was one injury that was simply going to take  _ time _ to heal.

The huntress never had been good at bed rest; she’d been fortunate not to suffer many injuries that required that kind of recuperation in her life, though it seemed she didn’t have much choice in the matter now. She also didn’t have any particularly pressing business to see to, unlike the last time after the attack at the proving… Aloy gave herself a mental shake and dragged her thoughts from that unhappy memory then turned her attention to the present instead. She was still on her quest to find Elisabet’s home, and she had a good lead, but it wasn’t as though she was in a rush, and there were worse places to recuperate than in the home of a friend. Besides, she was curious about this new life Erend had built for himself, as well as the village itself.

Aloy hadn’t spent much time in the Claim until now; going off what she’d heard from those that had fled it to start a life in the Sundom it wasn’t exactly hospitable to strong-willed individuals of the female persuasion. Even on her way to Ironwood she hadn’t lingered in any villages longer than it took her to resupply, though with how out of the way Erend’s village was, that had only been a couple of times since she’d passed the Breakwalls.

She suspected Ironwood would be different than those other villages; better, if her friend had anything to say about it.

Smiling a little to herself in anticipation, Aloy stretched, then looked around for her things, but was brought up short when she realized the door had been opened a crack to reveal someone peering in at her. The huntress nearly reached for her belt knife on reflex, but managed to restrain the impulse as she realized the ‘someone’ was a child, and said child was Erend’s cousin.

“Sorry!” the girl squeaked and opened the door a little further so she could poke her head inside the room, embarrassed at being caught. “I was just checking to see if you were awake,” Lira explained with a shy smile, clinging to the doorknob as she leaned in a few inches more. “And now you are! Are you hungry? Uncle Erend said I should make sure you eat when you woke up; Mama put some food aside since you missed breakfast and all. There’s fresh bread and some fruit and boiled eggs aaaaand hot cereal,” the child explained, then stopped as suddenly as she’d started and waited eagerly for an answer.

Blinking a little at this sudden flood of information, Aloy hesitated a moment, then admitted, “Well, I am hungry-” but before she could say anymore, Lira said, “Okay!” and vanished, practically slamming the door shut in her excitement. The child’s exit was so sudden the huntress could only sit and stare for a moment until the absurdity of it brought her around and made the woman chuckle.

Aloy had very little experience with children. She’d never been afforded the opportunity to play with any when she was young herself, and basically all of her exposure to them had come only  _ after _ leaving the Sacred Lands. Even then, no one among those she counted as her friends had children, so any interaction she’d had with them was superficial at best. The huntress rather suspected that was about to change during her stay in Ironwood, though.

Lira reappeared much faster than Aloy anticipated, lending truth to the suggestion that her mother must really have had some food ready and waiting for their ealdorman’s guest when she woke. The huntress only barely had time to push the blankets aside and work her way, carefully, into her breeches before the door opened again, revealing her little keeper with a tray of food and a disapproving frown that rivaled her mother’s.

“You’re not supposed to get up yet!” the girl protested as she hurried over, only to slow halfway when she nearly sloshed the steaming contents of a mug wedged into the corner of the tray over the rest of the food. The exaggerated care Lira moved with after that brought a smile to Aloy’s face that the huntress was forced to quickly tuck away lest she offend the girl. “Sit back and eat,” Lira insisted as she set the tray on the bedside table, then added, “If you don’t, I’ll have to tell Uncle Erend and _ he _ said that if you didn’t he’d-” she paused then, brow furrowing slightly as she cast her gaze to the ceiling and, with the air of someone reciting something from memory, continued, “-lock you up in the root cellar where you can’t get into any trouble.”

Aloy, who had already been examining the latest offerings from the kitchen, snorted in amusement at the empty, though well intentioned threat. “He could try,” she mused with a chuckle as she once again went for the bread and butter first.

“He could do it!” Lira objected, then beamed proudly and said, “Uncle Erend is  _ super strong _ ! Sometimes he throws me over his shoulder or carries me on his back, so I  _ know _ .” She eyed Aloy, then added, “He carried you yesterday too, and you’re way bigger than me,” before turning away and opening the curtains to let the light in.

Flushing a little at the memory, Aloy finished off the slice of bread and cleared her throat. “He is pretty strong,” she agreed, then added in a lighter tone, “Plus my knee is injured so I guess it wouldn’t take him much to get the drop on me.”

“Everyone says he’s super good at fighting,” Lira remarked as she undid the window latch and peered outside. Then, unexpectedly, the girl added, “He beat my papa and everyone used to say  _ he  _ was super good at fighting too.”

Aloy swallowed the hot cereal she’d just spooned into her mouth, green eyes darting towards the child where she still stood at the window. Lira had her arms propped up on the casement now, one booted foot kicking absently at the baseboard as she watched whatever was going on below. She didn’t seem terribly upset by what she’d said, but Aloy still had to wonder, and found herself unable to refrain from asking, “How do you feel about that?” When Lira twisted to look back at her with a look of confusion, the huntress clarified, “About your uncle making your father outcast.”

The little girl frowned and shrugged uncomfortably, then, shifting the subject, asked, “How come  _ you’re _ an outcast?”

Aloy blinked, astonished to find that Erend’s distraction tactics appeared to run in his family. Her first inclination was to be annoyed, but she checked it, reminding herself that this was a child, and while she didn’t have much experience with them, even she knew they didn’t have much in the way of filters or understanding of complicated social issues. The huntress forced herself to take a breath and said, “I’m not outcast anymore, actually, but I  _ was _ outcast because…” she hesitated a moment, unsure how to explain the nature of her birth to a child with little knowledge of the world at large, let alone the Metal World. Finally, she settled on the vastly simplified, “because they didn’t know who my mother was.”

“Oh,” Lira said, face scrunched up in disapproval, “That’s weird.”

Smiling a little, Aloy agreed, “It is,” and went back to eating her breakfast.

After a minute, Lira left the window and took the chair next to the bed, though it required a bit of a hop to get into it. Short enough that her feet did not reach the ground while seated, the girl kicked her heels idly, hands tucked under her thighs to keep from fidgeting before saying, out of the blue, “I don’t think I mind that Papa is gone, actually.”

Aloy looked at her again and wondered if talking children for any length of time  _ always _ felt like conversational whiplash, or if it was something unique to Lira. Distant, foggy memories of her own childhood made her suspect the former, but she wasn’t beyond considering the latter. “Oh?” she remarked noncommittally in spite of her curiosity.

Lira nodded. “Mama seems much happier now,” she explained, smile returning. “And Uncle Erend says I can be any kind of apprentice I want to, even a blacksmith!” the child added brightly, shifting excitedly in her seat at the prospect in a way that brought a smile to Aloy’s face as well.

“I have a friend who originally lived here in the Claim named Petra Forgewoman,” the huntress said and found Lira’s gaze immediately riveted on her, hanging off her every word. “She lives in Freeheap in the Sundom now, but she’s the one that helped design the guns we used to defend Meridian in the battle against the Eclipse.”

“Really?” Lira asked, eyes wide with awe at the idea, then leaned forward excitedly and said, “That’s what I wanna do! That’s what I’ve  _ always _ wanted to do!” She paused briefly, then corrected herself, “Well, maybe not guns, but I want to design things! Things that do stuff for people like… like sawmills and elevators!” Aloy grinned at the girl’s enthusiasm, though her smile faltered a little as Lira continued blithely on, “Now that Papa’s gone, Uncle Erend is in charge of our family and he  _ never _ hits me when I talk about wanting to be an apprentice. He even said I don’t have to get married when I grow up if I don’t want to!”

The huntress went very still at Lira’s statement, though the child didn’t notice and continued to ramble excitedly about all the things she wanted to learn and do as an apprentice blacksmith. She had wondered what would make Erend cross a line he had deemed cruel in her own people by making his uncle outcast, and now she knew. Magda’s explanation that the older man had attacked her friend while he was unarmed might have been more than enough for most, but for the Erend she’d known in Meridian, that would never have been enough for such drastic action. Aloy had worried this meant his new responsibilities had changed him, but after learning what his own childhood had been like the last time she had seen him in the Sundom, everything clicked into place for the huntress.

If her friend had discovered that his own niece had been suffering at her own father’s hand even a fraction of what he and his sister had under their own,  _ of course _ he would take action to protect her. The day Erend Vanguardsman allowed such a thing to happen unchallenged would be the same day the sun rose in the Forbidden West.

The revelation rendered Aloy temporarily speechless, but Lira seemed capable of holding a conversation all on her own, which allowed the huntress time to gather herself. She mustered a smile for the little girl and wondered how anyone could ever want to lay a hand on a child, to stifle the bright spark of her curiosity and excitement. Once again, the huntress sent up silent thanks for her good fortune in father figures, whatever the difficulties that had come with being an outcast child. Aloy also found herself glad that Erend had made his way back into his niece’s life, even if it had resulted in a man becoming outcast. She didn’t know if her friend intended to involve himself so far as to become a father figure to Lira, but she was certain he would look out for her and guide her as best he could, regardless.

“Sounds like you have a lot of plans,” Aloy said when Lira finally had to pause for breath and the little girl grinned.

“Yep! I have to wait until I’m ten to start my apprenticeship, but I’m gonna do plenty before then,” Lira said, small hands clenching in determination. “I’ve been working as Uncle Erend’s assistant and he’s been teaching me lots too,” she added cheerfully.

A warm smile overtook Aloy’s face as she finished her breakfast and said, “You really love your uncle, don’t you?”

“Well _ yeah _ ,” Lira said, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world, drawing a chuckle from the huntress, then admitted, “I thought he was kind of scary at first, but not anymore!”

“Scary?” the huntress asked, amused at the very idea. Granted, she knew from personal experience that her friend could certainly cut a dangerous figure on the battlefield, but she doubted he’d try to do as much in Ironwood. Not in front of a child, anyways.

Lira rocked distractedly in her seat, the swinging of her legs becoming enough that her toes drummed against the bed frame as she thought, and then explained, “Well, all the grownups were really worried about him coming back, especially Papa since he was ealdorman.” The child frowned a little at this, and Aloy tried not to think how the man might have taken out his displeasure on his daughter and, potentially, his wife. After a moment, Lira continued, “Anyways, then he got here and there were all these  _ people _ and he’s real big and he used to work for the  _ Sun-King _ , who everyone said was gonna attack us again even though he stopped the raids.” The girl’s brow knit in confusion as she relayed her thoughts and Aloy had to work very hard to keep from grinning at her rambling. Lira shrugged then, and said, “Anyways, I think the grownups were just being dumb. Uncle Erend is super nice and he helped us rebuild the village and everything. Plus he tells the best stories!”

Aloy did allow herself to laugh then, and agreed, “He does, doesn’t he? I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who can tell a story with as much flair as Erend.”

Lira eagerly nodded her agreement, then, a little shyly, admitted, “My favorites are the ones he tells about  _ you _ , though.”

“Me?” Aloy asked, startled, blush returning suddenly at the prospect. Sure, plenty of people told stories about her these days, good and bad alike, but the idea of her friend sharing stories about her with his family rang… different, somehow. More personal.

“Yeah!” Lira exclaimed excitedly as she sprang off her chair and feigned stabbing something with a spear, “Like how you killed a giant Deathbringer together! Or how you fought Dervahl and saved the Sun-King!” She turned and faced Aloy again, then, and asked, wide-eyed, “He says you can control machines too, though Jorun says he’s just  _ exaggerating _ , but I heard one of the gate guards say you rode here on a strider!”

“A-ah,” Aloy stammered with a helpless laugh as all of Lira’s boundless enthusiasm became focused directly on her person. The huntress had detested the way the Nora had made her their ‘Annointed’ and tried to worship her as a mouthpiece of their goddess; but while confusing, Lira’s excitement struck her as more benign. Less a form of worship and more a sense of… admiration. The thought colored Aloy’s cheeks and managed to bring a smile to her face as she admitted, “Yeah, I did. Ride in on a strider, I mean.”

Even admiration was something Aloy generally tried to eschew from the people around her, but somehow it felt more acceptable coming from a child. Inspiring a little girl to reach as far as her imagination would carry her felt worth the discomfort.

“That’s  _ so _ amazing!” Lira gushed, but before she could say more, Aloy deftly changed the subject by asking, “Where is your uncle anyways?”

The little girl’s brow furrowed in thought as she tugged distractedly at a hank of her fair hair, then lit up and answered, “I’m pretty sure he’s in the courtyard training!”

“I don’t suppose you’ll take me there?” Aloy asked hopefully as Lira shifted uncomfortably from foot-to-foot under her gaze.

“You’re  _ supposed _ to stay in bed,” the girl said.

“Please?” Aloy wheedled, “I’ll go crazy if I have to stay in this room all day with nothing to do.” The huntress could tell Lira was about to say no, and she had to admit she was surprised at the girl’s ability to stand up to her. A sign of just what high regard she held her uncle in, Aloy supposed with some amusement; Lira clearly didn’t want to disappoint him in her duties as it became apparent Erend had set his niece the task of babysitting her. Lighting on one last ditch effort, though, Aloy said, “I’ll tell you the story about how I first discovered a Metal World ruin when I was even younger than you.”

Lira took the bait, hook, line, and sinker and Aloy had the good grace to feel a little guilty for the manipulation. “Tell me!” the girl said, but the huntress shook her head and said, “Only once we’re outside.” Aloy was further impressed when Lira hesitated even then, so she added, “I promise I’ll just sit on the stairs and watch, no walking around.”

It was the straw that finally broke the Strider’s back. “Oh  _ alright _ ,” Lira said with a dramatic sigh. “I think Aunt Bana brought some crutches over for you anyways, I’ll go get them.”

Aloy wrinkled her nose a little at the mention of crutches, but was realistic enough about the extent of her own injury to know she needed them. Petite as Lira was, there was no way she’d be able to take Aloy’s weight if she started to fall; the last thing she needed was a lecture from Erend for breaking her neck going down the stairs and likely taking his cousin with her.

Lira didn’t notice regardless, and rushed headlong out the door with a quick, “I’ll be right back!” leaving Aloy on her own again.

A glance around the room revealed her bag and boots on the floor at the end of the bed, so Aloy carefully eased her legs over the edge of the stuffed mattress and sidled down towards it as best she could without irritating her knee anymore than she had to. A quick rifle through it afforded the huntress a mostly clean tunic, though rather than change immediately into it, Aloy carefully levered herself onto her feet and hobbled over to a stand bearing a bowl, pitcher of water, and a cloth. She used these to clean up as best she could, feeling a little grimy after days on the road and hours in bed, and resolved to ask Lira or her mother about the potential of a proper bath now that she was back in ‘civilization’. She’d heard that Oseram villages in the Claim tended to have impressive bath houses, but she’d yet to see one for herself, and considering Ironwood was still undergoing repairs in some of its less immediately necessary districts, she wasn’t sure if one was available. Regardless, Aloy was certain that a bucket of warm water and a little privacy wouldn’t be too much to ask of her hosts.

The huntress had just finished donning her fresh tunic after deciding to leave aside her leathers altogether, and pulled on her boots when Lira returned triumphant, crutches in hand. The latter task hadn’t been easy, and she hadn’t bothered with most of the bindings on her right boot, but it was better than she’d managed yesterday so the huntress took the win, small though it was.

“I got them!” Lira said proudly as she approached Aloy and offered her the crutches. “Aunt Bana caught me sneaking them,” the child admitted with a grimace, “But she said you could have them anyways as long as you promise not to go far and be careful of your leg.”

“I promise,” Aloy agreed readily and accepted the new keys to her mobility then used them to carefully regain her feet (well,  _ foot _ , anyways). She tried moving slowly around the room with them, familiarizing herself with the necessary swinging motion of her arms and body while Lira hovered nearby, watching closely. When she’d gotten the hang of it, the huntress nodded at Lira and said, “Alright, lets go.”

The girl held the door open for her, then closed it after them and lead the way down the hallway. Navigating the stairs was a little nerve wracking, and wound up going more smoothly once Aloy passed one of her crutches to Lira and relied on the handrail for extra stability instead until she reached the bottom and reclaimed it. It was absurd, but the redhead couldn’t help but feel a bit pleased with herself after her little keeper gave her a proud smile before leading the way through the common room towards the main entrance.

Aloy hadn’t really had the opportunity the day previous, but she took the chance to get a better look at the large room as she passed through it now. Two stories tall, there was a gallery overhead where people could observe the first floor, though there was no one there now, as far as she could see. There were, however, a few people scattered around the room, mostly going about their own business, though some lingered near the immense hearth at one end of the room, conversing among themselves. Most of them glanced her direction as she and Lira passed, and it seemed to Aloy that, to a one, their eyes caught on her red hair.

The huntress had never come across anyone with hair quite like hers in all of her travels, and it often went remarked upon. The Oseram, though, seemed to be the most fascinated by it; she’d yet to figure out just why that was, however.

“Are you okay? Is your leg hurting?” Lira asked, brow furrowed in concern as she doubled back when she realized Aloy’s pace had begun to slow.

Giving herself a mental shake, Aloy smiled at the girl and said, “No, I’m fine,” and started off again, forcing Lira into a trot to get ahead of her and open the door.

Once outside, Aloy paused on the terrace and took a long, deep breath, relishing the fresh, crisp air. For an Oseram village, there was surprisingly little smoke clogging the atmosphere, something the huntress put down to the near constant breeze rolling down the valley from the high mountains looming overhead. The staircase down to the courtyard below was quite long, but with broader, shallower steps, it proved easier to navigate than those up to the second floor inside the lodge. She and Lira made their way down most of them, then settled in to sit and watch the large group of people training under the watchful eyes of Erend and a woman Aloy vaguely recognized.

After a moment the huntress was able to put a name to the face; Gelda, Erend’s sergeant from his time in the Vanguard. Apparently she had decided to accompany him back to the claim Ironwood, though Aloy couldn’t recall if she was a native daughter of the village or not.

They were overseeing pairs of clearly novice fighters as they went through basic combat drills, some with hammers, others with short swords, though all were made of wood. A wise choice on their part, Aloy thought as she watched one man fail to block a blow that would have cut him from naval to sternum if his opponent had been using a real blade. A brief glance over the rest of the group revealed that the majority of the participants were women, though the huntress failed to fully register this as her attention was almost immediately caught by Erend himself.

Her friend was stripped bare to the waist, idly spinning a wooden war hammer as he walked up and down rows of combatants, correcting a stance here, a grip there. His pale skin was slightly flushed with the warmth of the day and the exertion, particularly across his tattooed chest and shoulders. Aloy had known he had tattoos, of course; it was hard to miss the wrist to shoulder sleeve of ink on his right arm, or the smaller series of glyphs and markings on his hands, after all. Granted, now that she looked at it, the huntress couldn’t recall if she’d ever seen the full extent of the sleeve before, especially when he turned to speak to a student, revealing that the black markings dipped down and over his ribs and graceful arcs. The piece he had across his left peck was made up of geometric shapes that curled up and over his shoulder, some of which reminded her vaguely of a Watcher’s eye.

Aloy also knew Erend was strong, but seeing all the heavy, practical muscle that gave him that strength was affecting her more than any other similar displays from men had before. When her friend turned away from her to say something to Gelda, he stretched absently, arms going out to his sides, then sweeping up over his head, making the muscles of his back ripple and flex in a way that made the huntress’ mouth suddenly go very dry.

The ealdorman turned back to the group of students and waved for them all to stop what they were doing, “Alright, alright, that’s enough for the day, boys and girls. Good effort.” A sigh of relief went up from the crowd and a grin pulled at Erend’s mouth. “Don’t get too comfortable, you’ll be right back at it tomorrow,” he said, inspiring a general groan that he ignored and continued, “A lot of you are still struggling with this whole ‘blocking’ concept, and we’re not going to move on til you get it.”

“How’m I supposed to block an entire war hammer with this pig sticker?” one student complained as she waved the wooden short sword she’d been using, tone one of exasperation.

One man scoffed. “More like how am I supposed to block a whippy little knife I can barely track with something this heavy!”

As a few murmurs of agreement rose from the crowd, Erend quirked a brow then exchanged a look with Gelda. It seemed to Aloy that some understanding passed between them, an unspoken conversation born from years of familiarity, at the end of which Gelda shrugged and Erend nodded before turning back to their students and raising a hand for quiet again.

“Alright, how about a demonstration then?”

The reaction was immediate, students quickly scattered to the sides of the courtyard, excited by the prospect as their teachers moved to the center of the courtyard. Erend stretched while Gelda stripped out of her tunic to the light weight linen shirt beneath, then grabbed a buckler and headed back to meet her opponent.

Besides Aloy, Lira clapped excitedly and grinned up at the huntress and exclaimed, “I’m glad we came outside, I  _ never _ get to see Uncle Erend fight!”

“I’ve seen him fight, but not spar,” Aloy admitted to the girl. She’d fought by his side in actual battle, of course, but that was different, and certainly didn’t offer much opportunity to sit back and watch her friend’s technique.

The huntress had kept her voice down when speaking, but Lira’s higher pitched tones must have carried across the courtyard as Erend looked their way and paused mid-stretch when his eyes found not only his niece, but Aloy as well. Curiously embarrassed, despite there being no reason for her to not be there, the woman raised a hand in greeting, which Erend mirrored.

His heart had been perfectly steady in the face of a sparring match with his friend, but the moment he caught sight of Aloy seated on the steps of the lodge, pretty as a picture in the early afternoon sunshine with Lira at her side, Erend’s pulse went haywire and he felt a blush threaten to creep across his cheeks. How long had she been there, he wondered. Was she feeling better? It looked as though Lira had managed to weasel the crutches from Bana, but he should probably check to see how she was doing-

Erend only made it as far as shifting his weight to start in the huntress’ direction before Gelda’s voice recalled him to the present. “Save it, lover boy, she’ll still be there when we’re done.”

He glanced down at his friend, startled and then guilty; he’d completely forgotten what they were doing the moment he’d laid eyes on Aloy, and judging from the wry look on Gelda’s face, she knew it.

“If you want to go play you have to finish your work first,” she chided him in a bland tone that made the ealdorman laugh outright and settle back into his skin and the task at hand.

“Not convinced the work ever actually stops,” he griped light-heartedly and his friend snorted as they both took a step back and then squared up to start their match.

Gelda was a talented swords-woman, Aloy could tell that within the first exchange of blows between the two friends, and despite this only being an exhibition match, the huntress still felt her breath hitch as the woman’s wooden blade was thrust forward, straight and true, towards Erend’s heart. She needn’t have worried, of course, and not just because they were sparring, but because her friends deflected the would-be mortal wound with a deft twist of his hammer. His style of fighting as he squared off against his smaller, more agile opponent was like nothing Aloy had ever witnessed from him before, but then she’d never seen him fight out of the protective comfort of his armor, either.

Rather than the large, powerful swings Aloy was accustomed to seeing from a hammer wielder, Erend kept his weapon moving the same way she had seen Carja fighters use their glaives and lances, though he’d had to adjust his grip some distance from center to make up for one end being heavier than the other. The ealdorman kept it spinning in tight circles, blocking his opponent’s strike with one end, and then countering with the other when it came around, occasionally bending at the waist to avoid a horizontal slash as he let his hammer spin across the back of his shoulders and around his neck before reclaiming it with a hand as he straightened. Gelda seemed to be getting a feel for his peculiar style, though, and he was forced to bend over backwards to avoid a second slash, then found himself dropping to the ground to land on his back with a grunt when the woman dropped and knocked his feet out from under him with a neat sweep of her foot.

Aloy found herself admiring the move even as Lira launched to her feet beside her with a shout for her uncle to get back to his feet. The students on either side of the courtyard were in an uproar as well, and though she couldn’t stand, the huntress joined in, raising her voice alongside Lira’s in Erend’s support.

Gelda pressed her advantage and sprang forward to finish the match, but her opponent was already moving, rolling to one side then springing to his feet and swinging his hammer up in a long arc, forcing the swords-woman to check her forward momentum as he allowed the gesture to go full circle, then carry him into a full spin that drove her back a step. That was followed by another as Erend swung the hammer up on the backswing and then sharply down with a deceptive grace that almost masked the power behind the strike. Gelda only barely managed to deflect it with her buckler, sending up a loud crash that cut through the noise of the crowd, which had grown to include more than just the students now.

The ealdorman sprang nimbly backwards to buy himself time to recover and Gelda chased after, only to step directly into her opponents trap. Rather than attempt to swing his weapon as she had anticipated he would, Erend thrust the hammer straight outwards, letting the shaft shoot forward through his hand before tightening his grip at the last second and bracing his weight behind the unexpected thrust. The blunt head of the hammer struck Gelda in the sternum, impact all the result of her own forward momentum as she ran straight into the the attack.

Aloy flinched in sympathy as the other woman doubled over and stumbled back a few paces, sword hanging limply from her hand as she gripped her chest, clearly winded. Still, as much as it likely stung, the huntress knew Erend could have done significantly more damage if he’d thrown his weight behind the thrust rather than just holding his ground and allowing her to come to him instead. Impressed by both Oseram, Aloy applauded with the rest of the crowd, though she refrained from screaming her delight the way Lira did when Gelda lifted her sword in defeat, clearly uninterested in continuing the match after such a blow.

She did, at least, put her fingers to her lips and let out a long whistle of approval as Lira turned to her and excitedly exclaimed, “I  _ knew _ he was strong! That was amazing!”

“It was,” Aloy agreed earnestly. She’d known Erend was good, but seeing him so capable of adjusting his style of fighting to wrong-foot his opponent and cover for his own lack of armor sparked a new admiration for his skill within the huntress.

As soon as Gelda tapped out, Erend hurried towards her and gripped her shoulder in concern as he bent to look his friend in the face and ask, “You alright? You really ran smack into that one.”

“I’ll be alright,” Gelda said, wheezing a little, but managing to straighten once more, much to the ealdorman’s relief. “You bastard, you  _ were _ training with Nazeed before he left, weren’t you? That great bloody glaive of his,” she complained and Erend grinned, offering a one shouldered shrug in answer. His friend made a sound of disgust and grumbled, “Shouldn’t have said you could go see your huntress once you’d finished the fight.”

“I can stay and wrap up,” Erend said gently, feeling bad that he’d managed to pull one over on her so effectively.

Gelda only snorted and pushed him, “No, you won fair and square. Now go see to your redheaded girl; you won’t be of any use to anyone until you do.”

Erend wanted to object to his friend’s repeated use of ‘your’ in regards to Aloy, but refrained for the moment out of a concern she might rethink her generosity and make him stay to wrap up class after all. So, instead, he flashed her a smile then made his way towards the stairs, only barely managing to keep the spring from his step as he walked, heart fluttering alarmingly behind his chest in a way that had nothing to do with the exertion of the match and everything to do with the fact that Aloy smiled as soon as her gaze caught his.

“You won!” Lira exclaimed as he approached, then practically threw herself at him in her excitement, forcing the ealdorman to drop his practice hammer with a clatter so he could catch both his cousin’s hands in his own to steady her. “I  _ told _ Aloy you’d win,” the child proclaimed smugly, giggling when Erend lifted her by both hands so her feet dangled off the ground and carried her a few steps up to return her to the huntress’ side, then set her down again.

“Before you ask, no, I didn’t actually doubt that you would,” Aloy said with a smile as she looked up at him, one freckled hand shielding her eyes from the sunshine.

Pleased, Erend settled down on the stair below her, then stretched back so his elbows were propped up on the one above and canted his head to regard her. “Good to know I’ve retained  _ some _ of my reputation.”

Aloy felt her stomach go tight and her mind blank as the man grinned at her. Lira asked him a question the woman didn’t hear, and as her friend threw his head back and laughed before answering her, the huntress found her eyes roving down the length of him. Erend hadn’t bothered to grab his shirt before coming over, so Aloy was treated to quite the view as he sprawled on the stairs next to her, fair skin marked by black ink and the scars of battles past glistening slightly under a quickly drying sheen of sweat. There was a lot of muscle on display there, and while Aloy came from a culture with no real nudity taboos, and had spent plenty of time in the Sundom where light, minimal clothing was common, this was the first time her fingers had itched for the opportunity to trace over the swell of a bicep or the curve of a peck… never mind all the tattoos.

Head tilting thoughtfully, the huntress found herself wondering if he had any  _ other _ tattoos…

“Alright, Aloy?” Erend asked unexpectedly, snapping the woman back to the present with a guilty jolt. “Looking a bit red there, you have a fever?” he continued with a thoughtful frown as he dusted his hand off on his pants then reached up and pressed it to her brow in an attempt to gauge her temperature.

The warm, gentle press of his skin to hers deepened Aloy’s blush. “I’m injured, not sick, Erend,” she said without any real heat behind her words as he withdrew his hand and arched a brow at her.

“Over exerting yourself can make you more likely to get sick,” he pointed out as he straightened where he sat, and when she opened her mouth to argue, he continued, “And traveling with an injury that’s trying to heal definitely counts as over exerting.”

The huntress sighed and offered him a rueful smile, knowing this wasn’t an argument she was going to win, not without explaining that _ he _ was the source of her sudden spike in temperature. “Yes, Ealdorman,” she drawled, smile widening when he grimaced at her jab.

“Go grab some water, would you, Lira?” Erend asked the girl and she nodded, then stood and brushed off her skirt. “Don’t let her walk around,” she instructed him primly and the man gave her a salute that made her giggle as she left to do as she was bid.

Aloy watched the exchange and was reminded of her thoughts from the previous night. Erend hadn’t changed in the essentials, that much was obvious, but the huntress couldn’t deny that he settled into himself in a way he hadn’t been back in the Sundom.

“You’ve grown a lot since leaving Meridian,” Aloy said when they were alone on the stairs.

Her friend looked at her, surprised, then down at himself as if expecting to find something. “And here I’d thought I’d done a pretty good job keeping the weight off despite not patrolling anymore,” he mused with a grimace, misconstruing the nature of her words, though Aloy couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not.

She snorted and pushed the man so he nearly toppled sideways, only to sway back in her direction until their shoulders bumped. “I mean as a person, you chuff” she clarified.

Erend pulled his legs in and leaned forward a little to prop his elbows on his knees, hands dangling loosely between them. “Me?” he asked and absently rubbed at an old, faint scar on one of the fingers of his right hand. It bisected the glyph that had been tattooed into the skin there, making it unreadable. “Nah. Same old Erend Vanguardsman, I promise,” Erend insisted as he looked at her with a smile and a difficult to parse look in his blue-gray eyes.

However he might have grown, Aloy could still spot his habit of deflecting and instead of letting him change the subject, continued, “No, you’re not.” Erend dropped his eyes and looked out across the courtyard instead as the huntress shifted a little to make herself more comfortable, pulling her good leg in and looping her arms around it while straightening the bad one to keep it from panging her. “That’s not a bad thing, Erend,” she continued gently. “Back in Meridian, it felt like you were… like you were wearing the wrong boots.” Her friend’s eyes widened fractionally, but he didn’t laugh at her, so she continued in a careful tone, “I think you felt obligated to fill Ersa’s shoes after she died, and while you did the job well, they weren’t  _ your _ boots; they chafed. But here in Ironwood…”

“I found my own boots?” he supplied and met her eyes again, expression thoughtful.

Relieved her friend didn’t seem offended, Aloy nodded. “Right. You did a good job in Ersa’s place, continuing what she started,” she told him and, compelled to reach out to him as she often found herself of late, brushed her hand briefly over his bare shoulder. “-but here in Ironwood I think you might be more  _ you _ .”

Erend hummed in response to her observation then turned his attention back to his hands again, picking distractedly at his nails as he thought. Quiet settled over them again as he did, but Aloy let it linger until they were interrupted by Lira’s return. The little girl didn’t stay long, though, as her mother had bid her back to help with some task or other in the kitchen, so she left the water-skin she’d been sent for and hurried off again without seeming to notice the pair’s introspective mood.

Aloy took a long drink of water, then passed the skin wordlessly to Erend, who accepted it and proceeded to drain half of it before returning it and leaning back onto the stairs again.

“I’m not sure how I feel about Erend Ealdorman,” he admitted quietly with a soft sigh as he dropped his head back to contemplate the scattered clouds rolling lazily past overhead. “Most days I just miss being Erend Vanguardsman. It was a hell of a lot easier,” her friend continued with a sigh, then let his head roll to the side where it came to rest against Aloy’s arm.

The huntress chuckled and the fond warmth of the sound made Erend’s heart race and then nearly leap right up into his mouth when he felt her hand brush lightly over his hair and neaten a few stray, dark strands where they fell over his brow. “I’m sure it was,” she agreed and though his eyes were closed, he could hear the smile in her voice and it was enough to make him smile in turn. “If it makes you feel better, though, I quite like Erend Ealdorman.”

Erend looked up at her again, breaking contact so he could look his friend in the eyes, and despite finding only earnest truth there, the ealdorman couldn’t help but ask, “You’re not just stoking my forge, are you?”

The woman laughed again and, content to revel in this brief, shared moment of companionship, just the two of them in the afternoon sunshine, Erend’s smile widened in turn. It’d be over all too soon, he knew, but it was easy enough to push the thought aside when the huntress turned her lively green eyes on him, freckled cheeks rosy from mirth as a sweet smile curled the corners of her lips. Breathless in the face of so much beauty, the ealdorman wondered if the sense of reverent adoration welling up within him from the deepest recesses of his soul was anything like what the Carja’s sun-priests felt for the sun and the man they perceived as its living avatar.

If it was, Erend found himself feeling charitable towards their superstitious zeal for the first time in his life; what  _ was _ a man supposed to do when he found himself unexpectedly face-to-face with the exquisite duality of imperfect humanity and flawless divinity embodied in a single extraordinary person? With a soul that burned as fierce and resolute as the fire of the first forge ever stoked by an Oseram, Aloy was a living force capable of wreaking incredible havoc on the world at large, but instead chose to help the people around her, change echoing in her wake wherever she traveled.

In moments like this, Erend felt compelled to drop to his knees and prostrate himself in gratitude before the unknowable will of a universe that had aligned in such a way that his path had, against all odds, crossed with Aloy’s and allowed him to win her friendship.

And he loved her. Gods of the East and West did he  _ love _ her with every fiber of his being. He was hers to command whether she knew it or not, and Erend was not so insensible in his devotion to miss how fortunate he was that Aloy would never take advantage of his staggering vulnerability to her slightest word or touch. She was too kind for that, and the trust that had developed between them had only made him love her all the more.

He was doomed, he knew, to a life of loving her and no other; how could anyone else ever hope compare? Erend also knew this meant he’d likely be single for the rest of his days, but he couldn’t resent her for that, not when all she’d done to make him her helpless devotee was unapologetically be herself. Still, he thought, as long as he could keep her in his life, he could be content, even if she would never be truly his.

“No,” Aloy replied as her amusement died down but a trace of her smile remained, and overcome by the immensity of the emotions welling up within him, Erend dropped his head to the side so his brow pressed against her arm again and closed his eyes, focusing on the cadence of his friend’s voice as she continued to speak. “I told you back in Meridian that I thought you’d make a good ealdorman, and I was right. I could see it as soon as I arrived, and again just now while you were teaching,” she ventured thoughtfully. “You’re much better at this than I am.” Erend didn’t look up, though he did snort skeptically at the assertion, but Aloy wouldn’t let the subject drop. “You  _ are _ , Erend. I had to become the chosen avatar of a ‘goddess’ to make people pay attention to me they way they do to you,” the woman insisted.

“It’s just the voice, really,” Erend said jokingly and earned himself a pinch on his bare arm that made him wince and laugh, though he refused to budge from her side.

Aloy huffed. “They respect you, Erend, and with good reason. Just look at everything you’ve managed to get done in just a few months,” she said and gestured out at the village and all the people going about their business in the courtyard now that the trainees had all dispersed.

The ealdorman was forced to admit it was a lot when he did as she bid and turned his attention outward once more. It still felt like nothing at all when weighed against everything he had yet to do, but in that moment, at Aloy’s behest, Erend was able to take a breath and appreciate that he had, in fact, made headway since his arrival.

“You should be proud of yourself,” Aloy asserted, then, more quietly, confessed, “ _ I’m _ proud of you.”

Erend looked up then, her earnest statement making his stomach flip as a blush threatened to overtake his face again. “Well,” he said, thoroughly flustered as he cleared his throat and tried to keep his cool as he continued, “Maybe being Ealdorman’s not so bad if he gets compliments from pretty huntresses for all his hard work.”

Aloy laughed again, heart leaping alarmingly in her chest as Erend’s coy smile sent a little thrill fizzling along her nerves. Their discussion had managed to distract her from his relative state of undress and the way he’d wound up pressed against her hip, but that awareness came rushing back now and threatened to send her blushing again. His body was warm against hers, even through the fabric of her clothes, and she wondered if the light breeze stirring the air around them was cool enough to use as an excuse to press closer against the man. How, she wondered distractedly, did one go about encouraging a man to put their arm around them without outright asking?

The huntress had never had any particular interest in flirting before, but now she wished she’d paid more attention to Vanasha’s displays of the more womanly arts. If there was anyone who knew how to get a man’s attention it was the dowager queen’s handmaiden…

The realization of just what she was considering sent a little jolt through Aloy and brought her blush back full force. Was she  _ really _ trying to outright flirt with her friend?

“You cold?” Erend asked, sitting up a little with a frown and the huntress realized he must have felt her reaction.

“I-” Aloy began, hesitating only a moment before coming to a resolution and, shy but determined, lied, “Yeah, a little.”

Her friend shifted up so he was seated on the same stair as Aloy, then he slipped one arm around her to chafe some warmth into her opposite arm. “Maybe we should get you back inside,” he offered considerately as his eyes traced over her features, brow furrowed with concern. “You’re looking a little red again.”

“I’m alright; you’re warm enough for both of us.” she insisted and leaned in to him, fairly vibrating with nerves as she tread this new, unfamiliar terrain. “Unless you have somewhere to be?” Aloy added as she glanced at him sidelong, not wanting to keep him from his duties no matter how much she enjoyed his company.

Erend only chuckled at her question and tightened his hold on her a little as they relaxed together in the afternoon sun. “Oh, heart of my forge, trust me, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a comment and let me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from you guys!


	11. Gifts from Afar

Unfortunately,  _ wanting _ to be right where he was didn’t mean Erend wasn’t inevitably  _ needed  _ elsewhere.

The pair were still lounging on the stairs enjoying the afternoon sunshine, Erend listening to Aloy with rapt attention as she relayed a story from her childhood, when Dorund approached from the courtyard below. He really ought to have known better than to sit out in the open like this, the ealdorman thought with a sigh as his cousin made eye contact so he couldn’t try and make an escape without blatantly ignoring the man.

That’d teach him to try and relax for five whole minutes together.

Sensing the shift in his attention, Aloy glanced down towards the approaching stranger, then back at Erend, who offered her a lop-sided, apologetic smile that told her their time together was over for the moment. Her friend straightened and allowed his arm to drop from around the huntress’ shoulders and she experienced a pang of disappointment, though quickly tucked it away. No doubt Erend had important duties to see to, and her sulking about it wouldn’t do either of them any good.

Instead, she turned her attention to the harbinger of the end of Erend’s break; while he wasn’t quite as tall as the ealdorman, there was a definite family resemblance between them, though he was built on a much slimmer scale. He wasn’t a fighter, Aloy could tell that much at a glance, but one of many things the huntress had learned since leaving the Sacred Lands was that it took all types to keep a village running. The way Erend got to his feet to wait for the other man suggested he must be fairly important, in any case.

The light tap of her friend’s fingers against the crown of her head drew Aloy’s attention back from the stranger to see Erend offering her a hand up, which she accepted readily. He hauled her easily to her feet and let his hands linger to keep her from stumbling, which earned him a grateful smile. Rather than fetch Aloy’s crutch from the ground for her, though, Erend simply tucked her arm through his to lean on if she needed, a small gesture that threatened to make the woman blush again, particularly when he placed his large, calloused hand over hers.

“Afternoon, Dorund,” Erend said, and Aloy immediately recognized the name. He was her friend’s cousin, the one that had made the long, hard trip all the way to Meridian by himself to ask Erend to be Ironwood’s new ealdorman.

“Ealdorman,” the other man said with a small smile as he came to a stop on the stair below theirs and gave his cousin a speculative look. “I checked three other places before here when I didn’t find you in your office, you know.” He glanced at Aloy and, smile growing, remarked, “Imagine hiding in plain sight like that.”

The huntress laughed and glanced sidelong at Erend who pointedly made no comment, then smiled back at Dorund and said, “It can be the best way to sneak up on your prey, in my experience.”

The ealdorman snorted and grinned cockily at her response. “Yeah? And who do you think my prey was, huntress?”

His challenge completely wrong-footed Aloy and all she could do was bark out a laugh as her cheeks colored red and she wondered if he really meant what she thought he was implying, or-

“I’m sure you figured it out already, but this is my cousin Dorund,” Erend continued smoothly before the woman could muster a coherent reply. “He’s Ironwood’s head scribe and record keeper; we wouldn’t be half so far along in the rebuilding process without him.”

“Hardly,” Dorund demurred, ducking his head modestly, though not before Aloy caught sight of his small, pleased smile at having his efforts recognized by his ealdorman.

Erend snorted, “Don’t listen to him. He’s worse than his mother when it comes to accepting praise.”

Aloy thought for a moment, then ventured, “Your mother would be Bana?” and was rewarded with a nod before she continued, “Well it’s good to meet you, I’m Aloy-”

“The Hero of Meridian,” Dorund finished for her with another smile as he made a small bow, fist pressed over his heart in salute to her before shooting Erend a sidelong glance and continuing, “Thank you for keeping my cousin alive long enough for me to fetch him back home.” The younger Oseram’s smile widened fractionally when Erend scowled, but he ignored the man in favor of addressing Aloy in an earnest tone, “And for everything else you’ve done for my family. If you ever need anything-”

“Please,” Aloy said quickly before he could continue, “there’s no need. Your family has already done plenty for me, let’s just… call it even.”

The cousins shared a look, though she couldn’t guess what sort of conclusion they came to between them. Regardless, Dorund neither agreed nor argued with her, but pressed a fist to his chest in salute once more as his smile turned apologetic and he said, “In any case, I’m afraid I’ve come to remind the ealdorman that he has a meeting with the elders to attend. They have some… concerns they would like addressed.”

Erend rolled his eyes. “The elders always have concerns they would like addressed.”

“And now is the time we scheduled to address them,” Dorund insisted. After all the time they’d spent in one another’s company since the younger Oseram had arrived in Meridian, Erend was no longer able to cow him with a look. Dorund had quickly learned that very little of the heat in his cousin’s words was genuine, and no matter how much he might complain, he would always do what needed to be done around Ironwood; no matter how tired he might be.

Or distracted.

Beside Erend, Aloy smiled at their exchange, then elbowed her friend lightly and said, “Go on, I’ll be fine. I’ll see you later, Ealdorman.”

The huntress then bent down to pick up her crutches, but Erend beat her to it and scooped them up, then passed them to her with a rueful smile. “ _ You’ll _ be alright, but what about me? I get to go have my ear bent by a bunch of cranky old-”

“Afternoon, Ealdorman.”

Erend shut his mouth so quick his teeth clicked and he turned to look at the woman ascending the steps towards them. She was about the same height as Aloy with sharp features and a prominent nose that put the huntress in mind of a hawk, her steel gray hair braided up in a crown atop her head. She was probably one of the most forbidding women Aloy had ever lay eyes on, and judging from Erend’s quick schooling of his features into something resembling respect, the same could be said for her friend.

“Ilsa,” he replied, then smiled and asked, “Heading to the meeting?”

“I am,” she replied, keen eyes passing from him, to Aloy, and giving her a speculative look the younger woman suspected gleaned more about her than she was entirely comfortable with. “Hurry along, you know how…  _ cranky  _ I can be when kept waiting,” she drawled and started off again.

Erend winced and hurried after her quickly when Aloy and Dorund both urged him on with furtive shoo-ing gestures. “You, cranky?” the ealdorman asked as he fell into step with the elder and offered her his arm, “ _ I’ve _ never seen it.”

Behind him, Aloy huffed a quiet laugh and Dorund smothered a grin behind a hand at Erend’s quick use of his ever-silver tongue. They shared a look of amusement, then Dorund hurried off after them, leaving the huntress alone on the stairs with nowhere in particular to be. It was an odd feeling, being at her own leisure for a change, and Aloy felt completely at a loss as she stared speculatively out across the village. She wasn’t always in a  _ rush  _ to be somewhere, but it was unusual for her to not have  _ some  _ destination in mind. Well, technically she still did, but until her leg was healed the huntress was locked in a waiting pattern she wasn’t accustomed to and it left her feeling restless.

The sensation was easy to ignore when Erend was around to keep her attention occupied, but left alone with her own thoughts, Aloy had no idea what to do with herself. No wonder he’d left his niece to keep an eye on her…

Thought of Lira gave the huntress an idea that she latched eagerly onto before resettling on her crutches and navigating back inside towards the kitchen where the little girl had told Erend she would be helping her mother prepare for dinner. Aloy’s experience in Oseram kitchens was non-existant, but she could peel and chop vegetables as well as the next pair of able hands, so she found Magda and offered her assistance.

The woman (and her daughter) tried to turn her away and insist that she rest, but Aloy refused to take no for an answer. “Please? I’ll keep off my feet but at least give my  _ hands  _ something to do before I go crazy from all this sitting around,” she implored.

Either Magda was of a similar temperament herself, or she suspected Aloy would get herself into some sort of trouble if left to her own devices, so she caved and set the huntress to peeling vegetables in a corner of the kitchen where she wouldn’t get under anyone’s feet. It wasn’t the most engaging work, but it was better than nothing, and gave Aloy plenty of opportunity to observe the hive of activity around her. She hadn’t spent any time in a large kitchen before, and it was fascinating to watch the carefully choreographed dance taking place as dinner came together. Magda oversaw it all like a general in charge of an army, Lira acting as her runner to keep everyone else on time so no one station fell behind and disrupted her meticulously plotted schedule.

The woman seemed pleased with Aloy’s work when she came by to collect the vegetables she had peeled. Her gratitude lit a silly little spark of pride in the huntress when Magda smiled gratefully and thanked her. Aloy helped Lira pick goose meat off stock bones after that, and gladly fulfilled the promise she’d made to the little girl that morning to tell her about the fateful day she’d first found her focus in an Old Ones ruin. Lira hung on her every word and Aloy thought with some amusement that it was no wonder Erend liked telling her stories; she rather enjoyed it herself. The child had a habit of letting her work lapse as she listened, though Aloy didn’t mind, only nudged Lira with an elbow every so often to remind her to keep her hands busy lest her mother come by and lecture her for neglecting her duties.

The rest of the day passed faster than Aloy could have hoped it would, though she was a little disappointed she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Erend since he was spirited away by his duties after their brief time together on the courtyard stairs. When dinner was finally ready and Aloy went into the great hall to eat with the others, it was immediately obvious  _ why  _ she hadn’t seen her friend for several hours despite his being in the same building. The moment the ealdorman entered the room, intent on getting something to eat himself, he was immediately ambushed by person after person in rapid succession, each with their own question or concern, rather than leaving the poor man to his meal.

Aloy had intended to try and sit next to Erend when he came to dinner, but the spots around him filled up before she could even start in his direction. Frowning a little in disappointment, the huntress hesitated, uncertain of where to seat herself at the big, communal tables that now occupied half the room. People were filtering in from outside, chattering among themselves and connecting with friends and family as they broke into groups and settled into what the huntress could only assume were their usual seats.

“You’ll have to fight someone to get a place by him now, and I don’t fancy your odds with that leg,” said a voice next to Aloy. She looked around, surprised to be addressed, and found another woman standing at her elbow. She was a few inches shorter than Aloy herself, with a round face, solemn expression, and chin length brown hair. On closer examination, however, the huntress realized she wasn’t actually a stranger at all.

Though they had never technically been introduced, Erend had pointed his sergeant out to Aloy before in Meridian, plus she’d just had the privilege of watching them fight that morning. The huntress responded with a rueful smile and said, “You’re probably right. Any other day I could take them no problem, but…”

“I know you could,” Gelda said, hint of a smile tugging at her lips. “Come sit with me til he’s done, they mostly let him alone after dinner if he bolts upstairs quick enough.”

“Thanks,” Aloy said, trying and failing to hide her relief behind a smile at the invitation and readily followed the other woman to a spot at the end of one table. They passed Lira on the way where she sat with her mother and the elder that had chastised Erend on the stairs who, Aloy realized belatedly, must be the other woman’s mother. She gave Ilsa a respectful nod and patted Lira on the head, earning a grin from the girl before they found their own seats.

The people already occupying the table quickly made room for the pair of them after a brief, awed glance up at Aloy, earning them a snort from Gelda as she sat down across from the huntress. “Consider this an invitation to eat with me anytime you want,” she told Aloy with a huff of amusement as she served herself from the dishes placed along the length of the table. “Normally I have to use my elbows to get any breathing room at dinner.”

Aloy laughed at the statement and said, “I’m just glad the attention is actually useful for a change.”

Gelda gave her a thoughtful look as she poured herself a pint of ale from the pitcher, then offered her companion the same. Aloy waved her off, and unlike some Oseram the huntress had met, Gelda didn’t make a fuss over her abstaining. “Yeah, I can see where that’d get old after awhile,” she remarked, then offered one calloused hand across the table and said, “I’m Gelda, by the way.”

“I know,” Aloy said with a smile as she accepted all the same and gave the other woman’s hand a firm shake. “Good to officially meet you, though. Erend pointed you out back in Meridian but I never had a chance to actually say hello.” The redhead’s lips twisted wryly and more out of tradition than anything, she offered, “I’m Aloy.”

“I know,” Gelda parroted, smile turning just a little impish. “Erend pointed you out to me too. Several times.”

Aloy laughed again, cheeks going warm at the statement as she hurried to change the subject. “I saw your match this morning; I was really impressed. I’ve never seen someone wield a short sword like that before.”

Gelda looked a little pleased at the praise, then grimaced as one hand went to the center of her chest and rubbed at the bruise that was no doubt developing over her sternum, “Still can’t believe I ran right into his damn hammer. I didn’t think he’d been keeping up with his training since we got here; more the fool me, I guess. Shoulda known better.”

The food was good and the conversation even better, allowing Aloy to pass the time until she could finally get Erend’s attention without her even noticing. Gelda had always struck the huntress as the quiet, introspective type, even more-so than herself, but she proved more than capable of keeping up an engaging conversation in the right company. All Aloy could hope was that the other woman felt the same about her.

“Now’s the time to do it if you need to talk to him,” Gelda said abruptly at once point, interrupting herself mid-anecdote as she glanced over Aloy’s shoulder and across the room to where the ealdorman had been sitting.

The huntress twisted to get a look as well and saw her friend making obvious passes at trying to extricate himself from his dinner partners and concluded that her companion was likely right. “Thanks,” she told the other woman and got up as quickly as she could manage with her bad leg. Gelda passed Aloy her crutches and the huntress thanked her again with a smile and hurried towards where Erend was already on his feet.

Luckily, people stepped readily out of her way and Aloy came to the end of her friend’s table just in time for him to turn and see her. A smile, both pleased and relieved, lit Erend’s face when he met her eyes and Aloy felt her heart flutter behind her ribs as she returned it with one of her own, then waved him over.

“Ah, if you’ll excuse me, our  _ very  _ esteemed guest seems to have need of me,” Erend told the people who had been trying to pin him down into further conversation at his table. They craned around to look at Aloy who struggled not to flush at their curious, then knowing regard, still uncomfortable as ever under the weight of so many eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll  _ bet  _ she does,” said one of the older men, inspiring hoots and cheers from the other diners and a rude gesture from Erend before he hurried to Aloy’s side and hustled her away.

“Fire and spit am I glad to see you,” Erend said. “I thought you were  _ never  _ going to come save me from those old turkeys.”

Aloy looked at him, startled, then laughed. “I don’t know, it seemed like you were holding your own alright. I’d have come sooner if I’d thought you needed it.”

The ealdorman huffed and smiled down at her, one hand unconsciously going to her lower back when they were brought up short by someone unexpectedly rising from a crowded table and cutting them off. “Maybe we should agree on some kind of hand signal-” Erend began, but was cut off by someone else calling to him from behind.

“Ealdorman! A moment of your time?”

Erend swore under his breath and glared daggers at the back of the man that had delayed their hasty retreat from the great hall before turning to see who had called for him while Aloy tried to keep a smile from her face and did the same. For all his annoyance, though, Erend’s expression softened somewhat when he saw the rail thin man who had just caught up to them.

“Argeld,” the ealdorman said and reached towards the other man who readily grasped his forearm with a smile of his own. “You’re a day early for petitioning, friend.”

“I am,” the man said. “Thought I’d come in the night before to save waking up before dawn to make it in time to get a good place in line. Wanted to ask you something  _ unofficially  _ before that, though.”

“Yeah?” Erend asked, arching a brow, which inched higher when Argeld’s attention went from him, to Aloy. “And what would that be?”

Aloy met the man’s gaze steadily, head canted to one side as she considered him with a raised brow of her own, wondering what he was about. At this point she had no doubt he knew who she was; word got around in these smaller communities, after all.

“Hosting a feast day,” Argeld offered out of the blue, making both Aloy and Erend blink at the suggestion. “It’s not often we have bona fide heroes passing through our little backwater village, after all,” he added, a grin curling the corners of his mouth as he glanced between them.

“No,” Aloy answered immediately. “I don’t want that kind of attention; I never have,” she insisted, brow furrowing as she looked up at Erend reflexively and to her relief, her friend immediately backed her up.

“Well, you heard the lady,” Erend said, hand settling supportively on Aloy’s shoulder. She’d attended the celebrations that had followed the final battle with Hades, but those had been more about celebrating Meridian’s survival and drinking to the memory of the fallen, not about  _ her _ .

Argeld’s expression turned rueful as he looked between them and he scratched absently at his scalp. “You would have to be a  _ modest  _ hero,” the farmer mused aloud with a grimace that earned him a frown from Erend. “Hear me out,” the man said, raising a hand to ward off his ealdorman’s disapproval, then turned his attention back to Aloy and asked, “What would it take to convince you to indulge us?”

“What do you mean?” the huntress asked warily, though was reassured by the subtle tightening of Erend’s grip on her shoulder.

“I  _ mean _ , the people around here; Ironwood, Greenglade, and all the other settlements, we’ve all been working non-stop getting things rebuilt since we got our new Ealdorman,” Argeld explained as he nodded his head in Erend’s direction, then looked at him sidelong and added, “Basically, we’re bone tired and I think it’d do us all a dose of good to have a chance to blow off some steam. Hard to justify it when there’s always more to be done, but if, say, the great Hero of Meridian, close personal friend of our very own ealdorman were to visit…”

Aloy sighed. “That’d be a good enough excuse to justify a day off.” She looked up at Erend again and saw him hesitate, which was all she needed to know that Argeld was likely making a legitimate argument.

He caught her looking and, brow furrowed, said, “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. I know you don’t like big shindigs-”

Aloy looked out across the busy room, lost in thought; most people were finishing up their meals and clearing out for the evening, no doubt heading straight for their beds after a long day of work. After a moment, she sighed and with a rueful smile, said, “Alright, just… don’t expect a speech or anything.”

“Beautiful, strong,  _ and  _ modest,” Argeld said with a wide, pleased smile as he gave her a half-bow, then looked at Erend and said, “Keep her close, Ealdorman; she’s forge-wrought for sure.”

Erend scowled at his words and waved the other man away with a sharp gesture. “You’ll scald your tongue if you keep hammering on like that,” the ealdorman snapped, though Argeld only chuckled and bowed again before stepping away. Erend sighed and watched him go for a moment before looking down at Aloy again, brow furrowed in concern as he asked, “You’re sure about this? You don’t have to, I could probably come up with some other excuse for a feast day…”

“Don’t worry about it,” the huntress reassured him with a one shouldered shrug and a half-smile. “Besides, I’ve never been to a proper Oseram party. I seem to recall a certain someone ‘hammering-on’ about how they’re the best around.”

Erend’s face split into a broad grin. “You’re damn right they are.” Aloy laughed, but before she could reply, they both heard someone mention Erend by name, reminding them that they had already lost their chance at a hasty retreat at least once. “Quick, or I’ll be stuck here all rutting night,” the ealdorman said, “we’ll go out through the kitchen.”

He lead the way, and Aloy followed, weaving between villagers in the hall and then through the more subdued kitchens. They got a few looks from the youngsters on dish duty, but luckily none dared comment to their ealdorman’s face about his being there, or his making use of the rear door that opened into a small courtyard beyond. Dark as it was, Aloy couldn’t make out much of it, but she did immediately spy the stairs to their left, winding up along the outside of the building and no doubt leading to one of the rooftop terraces the Oseram were so fond of building into their architecture.

Erend noticed the direction of her gaze and his expression brightened. “Perfect. No one goes up there this time of night,” before turning back to Aloy and giving her a considering look. “Here, ditch the crutches,” he instructed her. “I’ll carry you up.”

“I can make it,” Aloy tried to insist but he waved her off.

“Yeah, but this is faster,” he pointed out and, forced to agree, Aloy shifted her weight to one foot then passed him her crutches.

Erend tucked them out of sight in the shadows near the door, then turned and scooped her effortlessly up into his arms again. Aloy’s own arms went around his neck as she settled against him and the care with which the man treated her knee did not go unnoticed by the huntress. She smiled up at the ealdorman when he glanced down to check on her, and while she couldn’t be certain in the low light,Aloy thought her friend looked a little flushed as he flashed her a smile in return.

“You alright?” he asked and she nodded, which was all the permission he needed to start up the stairs at a steady pace before whoever had been looking for him in the dining hall could figure out which way they’d gone.

Aloy could  _ feel  _ his heart thundering in his chest by the time they reached the top, though she wasn’t sure if that was strictly due to the exercise or not. She liked to think that maybe just a little of it came less from effort and more from proximity. It’d only be fair, after all, seeing as his carrying her about always did funny things to her stomach.

“Here we go,” he said and put her down on a bench with a clear view of the village laid out below. The terrace he’d brought her to was a smaller one, though judging by the layout of the building there was probably a larger one not far away on another section of the roof. High overhead, the waxing moon hung, bright enough to drown out most of the stars that would otherwise have been visible, but lovely all the same.

“Nice view,” Aloy remarked, straightening a little in her seat to better take it in. The winding roads of the village sprawled out below, illuminated by a torch here, a fire pit there, or the gentle glow of the moon. The protective outer wall was a dark sentinel in the distance, topped by torches to cast a light into the night beyond, some of which moved along its length, no doubt carried by guards on their rounds.

Erend grunted as he stretched a little, then dropped his arms and smiled out over the expanse of Ironwood. “It is, isn’t it,” he mused, a particular look of peaceful contentment Aloy didn’t recall ever seeing on him before overcoming the man’s features.

The huntress watched him, studying his profile in the moonlight. She’d had so little experience with people that day they had first met that she hadn’t yet developed a personal taste in looks, but after meeting so many on her travels abroad, Aloy found herself very pleased indeed by the strong planes of Erend’s face and his high bridged nose.

And not just because his were the familiar features of a dear and trusted friend.

She’d always been particularly fond of his mischievous blue-gray eyes and crooked smile, but now, Aloy’s eyes were drawn to the sculpted curve of his lips. Had they always looked so soft, she wondered as he remarked, “Thanks again for the rescue.”

Erend beamed at Aloy as he dropped onto the bench next to her, close enough for their shoulders to briefly brush, but not so much as to potentially jar her leg. The huntress felt her heart flutter and tried to push it away as she returned his smile and said, “My pleasure. I actually  _ do  _ have something to talk to you about, though.”

The ealdorman’s brows twitched up and from the way he canted his head slightly as he regarded her, Aloy knew she had his full attention. “Oh?” he said, then added, “You heard what I told Argeld, if you have a request, petitions are tomorrow,” with a teasing smile. The huntress laughed and Erend’s smile widened as he leaned back on his his hands and continued, “Though, seeing as it’s you, I might be willing to make an exception.”

“How very kind of you, Ealdorman,” Aloy drawled lightly, unable to repress her smile for a moment before turning more serious and admitting, “But actually I have something  _ for  _ you.”

“ _ For _ me?” he repeated, appearing genuinely surprised as he left off his teasing. “What is it?”

“Well, three things, to be specific.” The ealdorman’s brows inched higher and Aloy couldn’t help but chuckle a little as she reached into the small pouch at her belt and withdrew a carefully folded envelope, then offered it to him. “Sorry it’s a bit creased, it’s come a long ways and this is my most water proof bag,” Aloy explained as she patted it.

Curious, Erend unfolded the paper, then made a little sound of surprise as he recognized the neatly inked glyphs on the outermost layer of parchment; slightly smudged though they were, the man would recognize that impeccable penmanship anywhere. “It’s from Avad,” he exclaimed, delighted as he looked from the letter and back to her. “You brought this all the way from Meridian?”

Aloy nodded, pleased by how happy the ealdorman seemed to hear from their friend. “I passed through before heading this way. When I told Avad where I was headed he insisted I bring this with me,” the huntress explained as she leaned in a little and tapped the thick envelope with a finger, then observed with some amusement, “Seems like he has plenty to say.”

“Well, I sent him a pretty long one myself awhile back when Nazeed and the others left,” Erend confessed, calloused fingertips tracing absently over the wax seal keeping the heavy parchment closed. Despite all the miles the king’s letter had come, the seal had remained intact; Aloy had been careful to ensure that much. As she watched, the ealdorman smiled to himself then tucked it into the inside breast pocket of his coat, clearly intending to read it later. The huntress could only assume the two men had even more to talk about than ever before now that Erend was also a leader among his own people. It was nice, she thought, to know that they had one another to lean on in such matters, even if they did live so very far apart. As knowledgeable as Aloy was on many subjects these days, the day-to-day practicalities of running an entire community of people were beyond her.

“So, I believe you said  _ three  _ gifts,” Erend said with a forced casualness that drew a huff of laughter from the huntress, and he grinned, unabashed, in response.

Aloy spread her hands to show they were empty. “I don’t have them with me, they’re in my pack downstairs,” she explained, then said, “But they go together. I brought you a focus and an overrider of your own.” Erend’s eyes went wide and he remained silent long enough that the huntress hurried to fill the quiet, suddenly nervous. “I… well, I thought you might find them useful,” she said and dropped her gaze to her lap where she picked absently at a stray thread dangling from the hem of her tunic. “With the focus we could stay in touch, even when I’m out in the wilds. And the overrider; I know you’re still short on people, but with that you could turn the machines against each other if you needed to. Or ride them, how I do, if you needed to get somewhere quick.”

“Aloy,” Erend breathed soft and low, drawing her attention back to his face. His expression was one of shocked disbelief, or maybe it was awe; hard to tell by the light of the moon, though Aloy found her attention caught by the way it made his gray eyes glow. “You don’t… steel to my soul woman,” he said, overwhelmed as he raked a hand through his dark hair and opened his mouth to say more, only to shut it again just as quickly. Eventually, in a quiet, earnest voice, asked, “You want to stay in touch?”

It was Aloy’s turn to look taken aback, then. “Of course I do,” she said. The huntress would have thought that would be obvious but here the man was fixating on it, a besotted smile overtaking his face at her answer. It brought a flush back to Aloy’s cheeks and she pushed lightly at his shoulder. “Even I get lonely out there sometimes, you know,” she mused quietly, shy as she glanced at him sidelong.

Erend swayed a little under her hand, and somehow wound up even closer than before. He’d twisted in his seat so he faced her, head tilted as he looked at her, lips parted fractionally and a coy smile tugging at the corners as he asked, “Are you saying you miss me when you’re gone, huntress?”

Aloy felt her heart leap alarmingly in her chest at her friend’s sudden nearness. There was something in his eyes, too, a certain tenderness in spite of his teasing tone that shook the woman and left her temporarily speechless. She wasn’t used to people looking at her like… like  _ that _ ; the huntress didn’t know how to respond, what to  _ do  _ under the weight of such a gaze. Aloy wanted… she wanted  _ something _ ; to reach out and pull Erend close, bury herself in his arms and lay claim to him so he’d never look at anyone but  _ her  _ like that ever again.

Mouth dry, Aloy covered her confusion with a breathy laugh and a challenging toss of her hair before daring to meet his gaze again, “If you’re going to get a swelled head about it, I’ll just give it to Avad instead.”

There was no heat in her words, but Erend still backed down, raising his hands in surrender as he retreated from her personal space again, leaving Aloy feeling both relieved and curiously empty. “Alright, I deserved that,” the Ealdorman said with a chuckle and a sigh, a twinkle of amusement still lingering in his eyes.

Aloy snorted. “If you behave yourself, I’ll teach you how to use the focus whenever you have the free time.”

“How about tomorrow?” Erend suggested immediately, unable to mask his excitement at the prospect.

“Sure,” the huntress agreed readily. “But don’t you have your ‘petitions’ or whatever tomorrow?”

The ealdorman groaned a little at the reminder, but after a moment, persisted, “We could do it after, if you’re up for it. It’ll give me something to look forward to.” Erend’s expression was so hopeful that even had she been inclined to say no in the first place, Aloy wouldn’t have been able to deny him. She had no reason to refuse, in any case, it wasn’t as though she had anywhere to be. She agreed and the man said, “Great,” with gleeful anticipation as he rubbed his hands together. “What about the overrider?” he asked after a moment, brow furrowing thoughtfully as he glanced down at her leg.

“It can wait until I’m better,” Aloy said with a wave of her hand. Eager as she was to be up and around, even she knew better than to try sneaking about after machines on a bad knee. “I can teach you how to ride,” she added with a challenging grin. Sensing he was about to shoot her down on principle, Aloy pressed, “We’ll need mounts if we’re going to head north to find the tallneck I keep pinging.”

“There’s a tallneck out here?” Erend asked, immediately intrigued in spite of himself. “I haven’t heard of any.”

“It’s a couple days ride north,” Aloy explained as she tapped the focus at her temple. “It drifts in and out of range, but if we can find it, we can download the data it’s been collecting and you’ll have a map of everything for hundreds of miles around.”

Erend whistled at the prospect, clearly impressed and intrigued by the idea. “Well, alright then,” he said and grinned, “But if I break my neck riding a damn machine,  _ you’re  _ going to be the one explaining it to Lira, huntress.”

“All-Mother forbid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Follow me over on [my tumblr](https://cryptid-jack.tumblr.com/) for more art and WIPs!  
> Make sure to drop a comment and let me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from you guys!


	12. In Vino Veritas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, this took _so much longer_ than anticipated, I'm so sorry 8'D On the plus side, it's extra long?  
> Make sure to drop a comment letting me know what your favorite part was! That really helps keep me writing TwT

By the time Erend had escorted Aloy to her room and made his way back to his own, the man had been too much of a flustered mess to sit down and read Avad’s letter before going to bed, so he’d left it for the morning.

 _She wants to stay in touch_ , the ealdorman thought as he cracked open the letter’s wax seal over breakfast in his chambers the next morning, a little frisson of delight and excitement racing up his spine. _She wants to go on a trip north, just us two…_

It’d taken him ages to get to sleep after their quiet evening spent on the roof, but Erend had felt well rested and more ready to start a day of petitions than he had since he first returned to Ironwood. Granted, that was mostly because he was eager to have done with it so he could get to his ‘lesson’ on how to use a focus with Aloy all the sooner, but he’d take the extra bit of pep whatever its source.

Taking a big bite of toast that he barely tasted, Erend’s gaze flicked over the glyphs on the first page of the letter and smiled around the mouthful as he chewed.

> _My dear brother,_
> 
> _I hope the return to northern climes has finally answered your many pleas for more merciful temperatures, as the heat certainly hasn’t relented here in Meridian. I only mention it as I find myself able to imagine what complaints and colorful oaths you would be making about now as you lingered on the veranda behind me with such clarity, it’s almost as though you haven’t left at all. So much so that I turn, expecting to see you, and find your lieutenant Caldert instead. A much quieter, polite sort of young man who is far less prone to complaining than his predecessor, I will admit, but… I miss you dearly, my friend; even more than I had anticipated._

Erend chuckled and brushed absently at the moisture threatening to gather at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t miss that forge cursed heat a lick, but the man to whom he had once swore fealty? Him he missed like a severed limb.

> _I was very pleased to receive your letter from the hands of Nazeed himself, as I had been waiting for it quite impatiently when I heard the men I had sent north with you had finally returned. You’ll have to forgive me, Erend, I very nearly thought you might have forgotten your promise to write, and was most relieved when you proved me wrong._
> 
> _Being wrong is not something a leader is glad of often, as I’m sure you’re coming to realize._

A soft huff escaped Erend but the ealdorman couldn’t bring himself to be cross with his friend, not when he had the reputation he did when it came to written correspondence. Eager for more, the man turned to the next page, food rapidly going cold as he continued to read.

* * *

Petitions were already well underway by the time Aloy woke; earlier than she had the day before, though still far later than was her usual habit. Lira brought her breakfast again, but was off in a flash again just as quickly at her mother’s direction, leaving the huntress to spend a few peaceful hours tending to her gear. Torn leather was carefully stitched, the breeches she’d been wearing when she’d injured her knee were patched, and her spear was sharpened. Aloy cleaned and checked each of her weapons in turn, and of them only her war bow gave her cause for concern. She’d acquired it during her spell in Ban-Ur and it was of beautiful, but incredibly durable make, leaving her surprised that it, of all her weapons, was the one to have taken any real damage. Or she was until Aloy recalled she’d had it strapped to the bag on her Strider’s flank when she’d been ambushed by that Ravager.

Scowling, the huntress examined it closer and confirmed that one of the cams had been bent on impact when her mount had gone down. Aloy was more than capable of repairing her weapons under most circumstances, but delicate metal work like this was beyond her. Lucky, she thought as she set about un-stringing the weapon, that she was currently in the heart of the Claim. If an Oseram forgemaster couldn’t fix it, no one could.

Figuring there was no time like the present to get the part looked at, Aloy got cleaned up and dressed in preparation for going out among people. It wasn’t something she normally put much thought into, spending so much time out in the wilds as she did (machines and bandits certainly didn’t care if her hair was combed), but the huntress couldn’t deny that people had a habit of _staring_ no matter where she went these days. All the scrutiny was bad enough without the possibility of people staring less because she was a ‘hero’ or ‘anointed’, but because her face was dirty or her hair was a mess. The former was bad enough without throwing the latter into the mix.

Fortunately, there was a small mirror hanging on the wall over the wash stand, so Aloy took a moment to carefully re-braid her hair after washing up. She’d left her bangs free the day before after waking, but by now her hair was in need of a wash so she pulled it all back again and made a mental note to ask Lira or her mother about a proper bath. Normally she’d just bathe in the nearest stream, but the Claim was rather famous for its bath houses, and the huntress would be lying if she said the prospect of a good soak in _hot_ water wouldn’t make for a blissful change of pace from frigid, glacier fed rivers. Aloy wasn’t sure what the odds of her hopes being fulfilled were considering the rebuilding efforts in Ironwood, but surely it couldn’t hurt to ask.

The woman made her way carefully downstairs, opting to rely on both crutches out of an abundance of caution and a fear of being caught and lectured by Bana. Erend’s familiar voice, raised in irritation as he debated loudly with another man in the best tradition of the Oseram caught Aloy’s ear as she approached the entrance of the great hall and lingered there, lifting herself a little on her crutches to get a better view of events unfolding within. Erend, Dorund, and a few others the huntress didn’t recognize were seated behind a table in front of the unlit fireplace at one end of the hall, with a long line of people that filled the rest of the hall and trailed out the main doors of the lodge before them.

Waiting petitioners, she assumed.

The man currently addressing the ealdorman was shouting and gesticulating wildly, though with the quiet murmur of the crowd between herself and him, Aloy only caught a few words. Something about goats, she gathered. Whatever it was, it had Erend looking irritated as he pinched the bridge of his nose before he struck the table with his fist, making a few scattered cups jump as he bellowed for quiet.

Whatever his response to the goat man was, Aloy missed it when someone tugged on her sleeve and drew her attention away from the scene within.

“It’s going to be awhile until Uncle Erend is done,” Lira informed her. “They won’t even break for lunch, they’ll just eat and talk.”

“Eat and shout, more like,” Aloy mused as she cast one last glance across the crowd towards her friend before turning to face the girl properly. “That’s alright, though, I was looking for you, actually.”

An expression of surprise and delight crossed the girl’s features and her eyes lit up. “Really?” she asked. “How come?”

“I was wondering if you could help me with something, if your mother doesn’t have you occupied.”

“I’m not!” Lira answered immediately, then hesitated and rethought before admitting, “Well, not right now, but she will soon.”

“This will be quick, I think,” Aloy said and shifted so she could retrieve the damaged cam from her belt pouch and held it out for the girl to examine. “I need to find a forge where I can get this fixed. You know one?”

Lira took the metal wheel, slim fingers playing over the spokes and noting where it was bent. “Sure!” she said brightly with a wide smile up at the huntress. “Forgemaster Brand should be able to fix it, I think; he lives over in the west part of the village, by the river. I can show you where, but then I have to come right back.” Lira looked up at her with a concerned frown, “Would you be able to find your way back on your own?”

Amused, but touched by the concern, Aloy smiled and said, “Tracking is kind of my specialty; if I couldn’t follow my own tracks, I wouldn’t be much of a hunter.”

The girl laughed then returned the cam and motioned for Aloy to follow her. Rather than try to squeeze their way through the crowd to the main door, Lira lead the way to a smaller side entrance, though not so small as the one in the kitchen she and Erend had made use of the night before.

The sky outside was overcast, but to Aloy’s experienced eye, rain didn’t seem likely. It did leave the air with a cool edge that put the huntress more in mind of fall than early summer, but then this was the furthest north she’d been in awhile. Aloy took a long breath before she followed Lira carefully down the stairs that wound around to the courtyard and relished the fresh air, bringing to mind a question she’d had ever since arriving.

“I’ve been to quite a few Oseram villages since passing the Breakwalls, but all of them have been clearcut for miles around,” she observed aloud. “Do you know why it’s not like that here in Ironwood, Lira?”

The girl glanced back up at her and smiled brightly, “Oh everyone knows that! Mama taught me if we cut down all the trees, the ground will all wash away and bury the village, so we only cut down a few sometimes.” Lira frowned a little and said, “Or maybe in certain places? Uncle Dorund keeps track of it, I heard him and Uncle Erend talking about it once when he took over.” They reached the bottom of the stairs and started off down one of the streets and the child’s face darkened a little as she admitted, “Papa didn’t do a good job with the trees. Everyone was mad.”

No wonder the village elders had gone so far as to recall Erend from Meridian, Aloy thought as she looked up at the nearest mountains towering overhead with fresh eyes. In early spring when the snow melt came, no doubt the valley became awash in water; without the roots of trees and underbrush to hold the earth, the entire place would turn into one giant mud slide. If Toruf had neglected something so obvious, who knew what other long term damages Erend and the others had been scrambling to put to rights the past few months.

“I’ve seen what avalanches can do, I can’t imagine a mud slide would be much better,” Aloy remarked thoughtfully as they passed a group of heavily armed Oseram, clearly on their way out of the village. Most of them were kitted out for hunting, though a few were dressed for battle, no doubt a precaution against any machines the party might meet on the way. To a one they regarded her with curiosity and murmured among themselves as they passed, threatening to make Aloy blush, but she mastered the urge. Their leader, a tall, strong looking woman with dark skin and hair offered her a nod that she returned before Lira lead them down a side road and out of sight.

“Who was that?” Aloy asked curiously.

Lira glanced back reflexively, then seemed to realize who she meant and answered, “Oh, that’s Ohlga Huntswoman! She’s one of the freebooters that came with Uncle Erend, she’s the best hunter.” The girl twisted so she was walking backwards to better speak to Aloy, gesturing animatedly as she spoke. “They’re going out to hunt boars for the feast day after tomorrow, I think!”

“That soon?” Aloy asked, nearly stumbling at the news.

“Yeah, I can’t wait!” Lira exclaimed excitedly, then stumbled herself as her heel caught a stray stone and sent her tumbling onto her backside in the dirt.

The look of surprise on the girl’s face as she sat there for a moment startled a laugh from Aloy before she shifted one crutch so she could lean over and help Lira back to her feet. “You alright?” the huntress asked and helped the girl dust herself off reflexively, trying very hard to suppress a smile as Lira pouted a little. “Gotta watch where you’re going or you’ll wind up like me,” Aloy pointed out lightly as she straightened and settled back onto her crutches.

The comment was enough to draw a laugh out of the girl and immediately return her to a good mood. “Well if I did, maybe Uncle Erend would carry me around like he does you, that would be fun,” Lira said innocently with a smile as she turned and started walking again, lesson well learned as she kept her gaze ahead of her this time.

Aloy felt her ears begin to burn, but luckily she didn’t have to come up with a way to distract the child as they rounded another corner and reached their destination. The forge was a decent sized building, set a little ways back from the street with a sort of packed dirt yard covered in scrap and machinery that wouldn’t fit inside, though more notable was the man loitering outside smoking a pipe. He was about Aloy’s height, completely bald, and tremendously muscular with a bit of a belly behind the heavy leather apron he wore. His age was hard to determine thanks to his soot covered features and impressive mustache, however; definitely older than her, though likely not so old as Rost had been before he passed.

Lira lead the way into the yard and the man immediately looked at her, an expression caught between amusement and exhaustion crossing his features when he did. “Lira, what are you doing ‘round here? Come to start a fight with my boys again? Stanuf’s already learned his lesson, girl, he doesn’t need another from you.”

Amused by the greeting, Aloy crooked a brow at Lira, though the girl pointedly didn’t look her way, instead, she replied, “I’m not here for him,” with a sniff that bordered on haughty and threatened to make the huntress laugh outright. “I brought you a customer!” Lira declared before the man could voice his skepticism and gestured to Aloy. Realizing she had been concealed by a particularly tall pile of scrap, Aloy stepped into view and smiled at the man who gaped at her sudden appearance. “This is Aloy. Aloy, this is Brand Forgeman, he’s a forgemaster,” Lira explained, beaming up at her before fixing the forgemaster with a stern look the very mirror of her mother’s. “Aloy is the ealdorman’s very good friend, so don’t you try and charge her too much or else I’ll tell Uncle Erend.”

Finally managing to shake off his shock, Brand looked at Lira and stammered, “I- what? No; fire and spit, girl, ‘course I wouldn’t do that.”

Lira hummed and leveled what she no doubt thought was a penetrating look at the man, then nodded and turned back to Aloy and said, “I have to go, but don’t be late for dinner tonight, okay? You have to sit with me and Mama tonight,” with a wide grin the huntress couldn’t help but return.

“I’ll be there,” she told the girl, then watched for a moment as she hurried off before turning her attention back to Brand.

The man actually jumped when her eyes landed on him again, which surprised Aloy a little. He’d obviously known who she was before Lira had even introduced him, but this level of nervousness was uncommon. In fact, he seemed downright flustered.

Hoping to save the man some unnecessary discomfort, Aloy moved closer and offered him another friendly smile in an attempt to set him at ease. “Sorry for just showing up out of the blue like this,” she said, “if I’m keeping you from something important, I can come back-”

“No!” the forgemaster exclaimed, waving off her concern as he knocked out the bowl of his pipe on the door frame and put it away in the pocket of his apron to free up his hands. “Not at all, never too busy for a friend of the ealdorman’s; especially such a pretty one.”

Aloy blinked, unsure what to make of the compliment as the man’s eyes roved over her features, lingering in particular over the long fall of her thick, red hair. “Well, uh, thanks,” the huntress replied with an uncertain smile and tamped down on the vague discomfort Brand’s words and manner inspired in her. She couldn’t help but recall the way Erend had called her pretty the day before on the steps up to the lodge as they lounged companionably in the afternoon sun, and how different it had felt when _he_ had said the same. The memory of her friend’s deep voice and coy smile helped the huntress put Brand’s awkwardness out of her mind and focus on the task at hand.

“I was hoping to get my bow’s cam repaired,” Aloy explained as she fished in her belt pouch and came up with the item in question, then offered it to him. “If it needs to be replaced, that’s fine, I’ve got the shards to pay for it.”

The forgemaster’s fingers brushed unnecessarily over her hand as he took the cam and Aloy frowned, but Brand didn’t seem to notice. He cast an expert eye over the little bit of metal and after a moment of turning it back and forth, said, “Fixing it shouldn’t be hard. I can make you one better, though, more durable,” the man said confidently as he looked up at her again. “Banuk are decent craftsmen, especially when it comes to re-purposing materials, but you can’t beat good Oseram steel when it comes to this sort of thing.”

Aloy considered, meeting Brand’s gaze with a canny eye. Whatever her personal feelings towards him and the almost covetous way he seemed to be regarding her person, she doubted Lira would have brought her to anyone but the best forgemaster in the village. That, and she was familiar enough with Oseram culture by now to know that not just anyone with the surname ‘Forgeman’ could claim the title.

“Do both,” Aloy replied after mulling it over for a moment. “I’ll use whichever one I feel is better, and keep the other for a spare.”

A grin split Brand’s soot covered face, the white of his teeth stark against the coal dust. “Good girl, me ‘n the lads will get right on it. Should have it done by tomorrow no problem.”

Displeasure at being referred to as ‘girl’ twisted Aloy’s lips, but she refrained from saying anything in favor of getting what she needed more quickly. Who knew how far being Erend’s friend or the Hero of Meridian would go to make sure she got what she needed in a timely fashion. “Alright, I’ll pay after I’ve seen the finished product,” the huntress replied in a tone that did not invite negotiation, though it wasn’t an uncommon stipulation to make when working with a craftsman for the first time, she’d learned.

Brand nodded and Aloy turned to leave, but was brought up short when the man called, “Hold on.” The huntress glanced back at him, one sharp brow quirked in silent question. The forgemaster hesitated a moment, which immediately put Aloy on guard, and good thing, considering what he asked next. “You spoken for?”

“What do you mean?” the woman asked stiffly, suspecting she knew _exactl_ y what Brand meant, but was still willing to give him the opportunity to back down gracefully before he dug the hole any deeper.

Unfortunately, he didn’t take it. “I mean, you got a man? A husband? You Nora do that, right?” Aloy leveled a flat, cold look at the man, who decided that, rather than shut up and apologize, the best way to fix the situation was to attempt to explain himself. “I only ask ‘cuz if you don’t, I’ll offer. Any red blooded Oseram man’d be a fool to pass up a chance to get himself a forgewrought wife.” Brand licked his lips absentmindedly as his gaze went to Aloy’s hair again and that strangely covetous look returned to his eyes. “If the ealdorman ain’t got the steel… well _I_ do-”

Aloy’s hands tightened reflexively around the grip of her crutches at his words, but before she could even begin to move towards the forgemaster, a familiar voice rang out behind her.

“Brand Forgeman, you keep a civil tongue in your head.”

Surprised, the huntress looked around and saw Bana standing just outside the forge yard on the rough paved street, observing the scene with a look of deep disapproval.

“I’m being plenty civil,” Brand complained with a scowl. “Making a proper offer, aren’t I? I’m no wet behind the ears boy coming to her, helmet in hand and nothing else to offer; I can provide.”

“You can _provide_ whatever it is the young lady ordered from you and keep it at that,” Bana countered sternly. Brand looked ready to argue, but when the woman narrowed her eyes, he huffed and let the subject drop before turning and stalking back into his shop, grumbling under his breath all the while. Once he was gone, the healer turned to Aloy, expression immediately softening into something warm and welcoming, all hint of her earlier steel gone. “Walk with me back to my house? It’s only just up the road; we’ll get you something to drink.”

The huntress blinked at the unexpected invitation. Finding herself with nowhere pressing to be until that evening and curious about Bana’s home, she accepted. “Well, if it’s not too much trouble. I don’t want to interrupt if you’re busy.”

“Not at all, it’s my pleasure,” Bana replied, seeming genuinely pleased by Aloy’s acceptance and perfectly willing to keep up a slower pace as they walked together down the street so the huntress could keep an eye on her footing.

Located close to the center of the village, the healer’s home was a tidy structure on the outside, built of stone and wood like everything else, obviously pre-dating Ironwood’s downturn judging by its age. Aloy had been in a few healer huts along her travels, but as she entered Bana’s home, the huntress felt immediately at ease in a way she rarely did anywhere these days.

It was, Aloy thought as she looked up at the ceiling beams where a great quantity of herbs and flowers hung drying, a little like being back in the cabin she and Rost had shared in the Embrace. Not in structure, of course; where her cabin had been rough hewn and rectangular, the main room of Bana’s home was a traditional Oseram octagon. The space seemed multipurpose, having several work surfaces, a fireplace, and a large, sturdy table that dominated the center of the room, though a door off to one side suggested there was more out of sight.

“Have a seat,” Bana invited Aloy with a smile as she closed the door behind them, then draped her shawl on a hook and left her basket on the table before going to the fireplace to stoke the embers within. Warmth and light flooded the room as she did, and the huntress watched her hostess put a kettle of water on to boil as she took the offered seat at the table, glad to be rid of her crutches for the time being.

“I’m sorry about Brand,” the healer remarked conversationally, giving her guest a rueful smile over one shoulder as she bustled here and there, fetching the things she needed. “He’s not a bad man; he meant well,” she explained with a soft snort. “Plenty of the menfolk around these parts, particularly forgemasters, would lose their head over a red headed woman, not just him.” Good humor crinkled Bana’s eyes and she added, “You’re an exceedingly rare breed, after all.”

Seeing an opportunity to finally ask another question that had been plaguing her, Aloy rested her elbows on the table and asked, “What is it with Oseram and red hair?” in a puzzled tone, brow furrowed. “It’s true you don’t see many people with it,” the huntress admitted as she fiddled absently with the end of one long lock, “But I’ve traveled all over and I’ve never gotten quite the same sort of… _looks_ as I’ve gotten here in the Claim.”

Bana made a soft, almost embarrassed sound of understanding as she straightened then made her way back towards Aloy and began to unload the contents of her basket, organizing the various plants and flowers by type across the tabletop. The huntress, long familiar with such work, turned her idle hands to helping and earned herself a smile from the healer as the older woman answered, “It comes from an old folktale here in the Claim.” She frowned thoughtfully to herself and cast her absent gaze to the ceiling as if she might find the answer among the drying herbs. “The tale itself is about the first Oseram to work a forge, though I don’t recall all the details. From what I recall, it was a woman with hair like fire that taught him how, which is why forgemasters in particular are so keen to find themselves a red headed wife of their own. It’s considered quite lucky, you see.”

The healer chuckled, making it obvious how little weight she gave the belief, and Aloy smiled. “I never really thought of the Oseram as the superstitious type,” the huntress mused as she divided a pile of flowers into small, neat bundles to be tied together for drying later. “Pretty much the opposite, really. You have no gods, so I thought maybe you were immune.”

“Even we have our moments,” Bana said as she moved back towards the fireplace where the kettle had begun to boil and prepared their tea. She smiled as she set one cup in front of Aloy before taking her own to sit across from her at the table and continuing, “That just seems to be human nature, no matter where you go.”

The huntress sighed a little, lips quirking as she looked down at her tea and mused, “Well, at least you’re not as steeped in it as everyone else seems to be.” After a moment, she asked, “Is that where ‘forgewrought’ comes from, too? Today was the second time someone’s called me that since I got here.”

Bana nodded and sipped her tea. “I think so, yes, though I can’t for the life of me recall why. We’ll have to find someone to tell you the story properly.”

“Maybe Erend will know,” Aloy mused absently, though was immediately put on guard by the almost sly curl of Bana’s lips the statement inspired.

“Could be, if you could manage to pull it out of him,” she said, smile widening at some private joke that made her guest quirk a curious brow. Relenting, Bana leaned forward a little and explained, “It’s quite a romantic story, from what I recall.”

Aloy’s brows shot up at the statement, and to her embarrassment, felt her cheeks color against her will. “Oh,” was all she managed as a reply before returning her attention to the cup cradled in her hands, its steaming contents suddenly much more interesting than they had been a moment before.

Luckily for the younger woman, Bana refrained from teasing her, and instead turned their conversation towards Aloy herself- her travels; even her childhood. The healer’s excellent bedside manner didn’t restrict itself to the actual bedside, apparently, and she proved quite apt at coaxing all sorts of information out of the huntress without ever making her feel pressed or uncomfortable. Before long, Bana knew more about Aloy than most, though this didn’t register with the younger woman until their conversation hit a natural lull and she realized just how much she’d divulged.

Feeling vaguely embarrassed at how uncharacteristically talkative she’d been, Aloy made a clumsy attempt at saving herself from spilling every last one of her secrets to her friend’s aunt by asking, “How’s Erend doing, really?” The words just spilled out of her and she grimaced internally at how obvious she was being, but Bana only smiled in that dangerously sympathetic way she had when Aloy rushed to add, “He seems to be doing well. I mean, it’s obvious how hard he’s been working, but-”

“You’re worried about him,” Bana clarified and Aloy nodded, sighing as she relaxed back into her chair a little. “We all worry about him,” the healer admitted with a soft sigh of her own, gaze drifting towards the fireplace as she absently tapped one finger against the rim of her cup. “He grouses and argues and rants with the best of the menfolk over all the work to be done, but no one’s worked harder or longer pulling us up out of the mud and putting Ironwood back together.” She looked back at Aloy, a small, canny smile curling her full lips. “I’m glad you came to visit. He’s actually been looking for excuses to take a few hours off here and there for a change; it’s good for him.” The healer’s expression turned carefully innocent as she added in a nonchalant tone, “ _You’re_ good for him.”

Barely managing to refrain from squirming under Bana’s regard, Aloy shook her head, a huff of uncharacteristically nervous laughter escaping her. “Erend’s always been good,” the woman said to cover, gaze going to one of the windows where one could see a small section of the street outside. “I know the kind of work he’s having to do here, rebuilding everything, reuniting people and getting them to work together…” The huntress fell silent for a moment, recalling her own efforts on that front among the Nora, then sighed and flicked her gaze back towards Bana as she admitted, “He’s better at it than I am.”

The healer gave her a sympathetic look over the rim of her cup, then said, “Some of us topple false gods, others put the world back to rights after; they’re both important jobs,” in a tone that was only half-teasing. “Asking any one person to be accomplished at both is a bit much in my book.”

Aloy chuckled, though it morphed quickly into another sigh before a thoughtful half-smile overtook her features. “Fighting Hades and the Eclipse wasn’t easy, but-” the huntress hesitated for a moment, searching for the words she needed, then continued, “it was much more straightforward than everything that came after. The rebuilding, the organizing, the negotiations…” Aloy grimaced at the memories of the many, _many_ arguments she’d been caught in the center of between the more traditionalist Nora that wanted to go back to the way things had been before the red raids, and more progressive members of the tribe that wanted to guide their people away from its isolationist roots. Ghosts of headaches past threatened to return so the woman gave herself a mental shake and forced herself to finish her line of thought. “Erend, though, he’s _good_ at this. He’s good at people. I mean, I already knew that; its why I suggested he accept Dorund’s offer in the first place, but seeing how he’s put his skills to use here is really impressive.” She smiled then, bright, warm, and honest as she admitted, “I’m proud of him.”

Bana’s expression mirrored the younger woman’s, clearly pleased to hear it. “Me too, Aloy.”

They dallied over their tea a little while longer, conversation turning back to lighter subjects and the healer asked after her patient’s comfort. When Aloy admitted to an interest in seeing the bath house, if it was functioning, Bana’s eyes immediately lit up.

“What an excellent idea. I was thinking of going tonight after dinner, but I could go with you now, if you’d like. There shouldn’t be many people there this time of day.”

“Only if you don’t have something more important to be doing,” Aloy said, a little relieved by the offer all the same. She’d practically made a career for herself venturing into the unknown by this point, but it was nice to have someone willing to walk her through the unfamiliar for once. It didn’t hurt that she enjoyed Bana’s company besides, not something she could say of most people she came across.

The healer smiled and said, “Not since you helped me sort all this, already,” as she glanced across the tidy bundles of herbs they’d parsed out while they talked over tea. “Help me tie them up real quick and then we can go,” Bana added as she got up and fetched a spool of twine and a knife from one of the nearby work tables.

The task took no time at all with two pairs of practiced hands turned to it, and before long they were back on the street, making a bee-line for a part of Ironwood Aloy had yet to visit. Bana carried a basket with bath supplies enough for the both of them, and pointed out what little sights there were to see along the way, though most interesting of all was the bath house itself.

Bath houses, rather. There were two of them; smallish, identical round buildings built primarily of stone with a single door in the front and some manner of great, hissing machinery on the outside towards the rear, though Aloy didn’t get a close look at it before Bana ushered her inside the one on the right.

“This one’s for women, the menfolk have their own next door so you don’t have to worry about them intruding in here,” the healer explained as they passed through a second inner door, no doubt meant to keep out both the cold and any prying eyes, into the large, open chamber beyond.

The air was extremely warm and humid, and Aloy cast her gaze curiously around the space. Nearest the door was a series of shelves and a bench, which Bana immediately seated herself on to remove her shoes, then began to disrobe and placed her things on one of the shelves. The huntress quickly followed suit, glad that here at least, things were somewhat familiar. The Nora didn’t have fancy bath houses (though they did make use of naturally occurring hot springs where they could), but they weren’t shy about nudity, especially where bathing was concerned. After the way Bana had reacted to the idea of Erend seeing her naked the other day, Aloy had wondered what the norm was for the Oseram. Here in the bath house, among other women, apparently even they didn’t blink at nudity.

The distinction seemed awfully arbitrary to the huntress, but being a stranger in a strange land, she kept her mouth shut and allowed Bana to help her over to the bathing area so she didn’t have to drag her crutches along. A broad, round pool of steaming water dominated the room, but before getting in, the healer lead Aloy over to one of the walls where the floor was covered in a grate and a series of chains hung in pairs a few feet apart.

“Have you ever been to a bath house before?” Bana asked with a smile as she stepped onto the grate next to a pair of chains.

“Not an Oseram one,” Aloy admitted as she cast her gaze curiously towards the low ceiling overhead where there seemed to be a second grate, this one with smaller holes than the one under their feet, which was clearly to allow water to be drained away. She’d visited the baths in Meridian, but she hadn’t seen anything quite like this before.

“Oh, good,” the healer said, seeming pleased, and just a little bit impish as she reached over to pull the shorter of the two chains next to Aloy. “Let me show you how it works, then.”

Warm water erupted from the ceiling over the huntress’ head, immediately soaking the woman and making her gasp in surprise. She nearly jumped back on reflex, but expecting her reaction, Bana reached out a hand before she could to steady her, trying and failing to suppress a laugh all the while.

“Sorry, oh I’m so sorry,” Bana gasped as she withdrew her hand, still chuckling, blue eyes bright with amusement. “I couldn’t help myself.”

Aloy cut the other woman a dry look, but cracked a smile after a moment and joined in as she reached up and pushed long, clinging strands of her hair back from her face. She looked around, then pulled the shorter of the two chains, which had originally been longer (no doubt some sort of counter balance to its partner), and the water cut off again, allowing the huntress to look up at the ceiling, impressed once again by Oseram engineering. “So, we wash here and then get in the bath?” she guessed and started pulling various beads and braids from her hair so she could give it a proper wash since it was thoroughly wet already.

“Yes, keeps the water fresh that way,” Bana said with a nod and offered the basket she’d brought their bathing things in to Aloy so she could place her hair ornaments inside.

The pair washed, first with a bar of soap the healer had brought along that smelled pleasantly herbal, and then with a similarly scented oil for their hair. For all the Carja seemed convinced that the Nora never washed, Aloy’s people did make and use their own soap, though the hair oil was new to the huntress. It somehow miraculously tamed her wild mane of hair into something soft as silk, leaving the younger woman to trail awed fingers through it as Bana pulled her own hair up into a bun in preparation for the bath, a gratified smile pulling at her lips.

“Nice, isn’t it?”

Aloy nodded emphatically then followed the healer’s example and pulled her hair back as well. “Normally I have to fight just to get my fingers through it, I’d kind of given up,” she mused wryly as they walked towards the bath and stepped down into the hot, steaming water. “Not that there’s much point trying to do more when I’m out in the wilds,” she added with a snort.

Bana sighed blissfully and settled into the water until it nearly reached her chin. “Not the sort of girl to dress up for the machines?” the healer asked, voice lightly teasing.

“You know, I tried a few times and they just didn’t seem to care.”

The woman laughed again and Aloy flashed her a smile. “Well, I can give you the recipe anyways, if you like. It’s good for your scalp and, you never know, maybe you’ll find yourself in a situation where you’ll actually want to get a comb through your hair,” Bana offered with a coyly.

“A comb? Never heard of it,” the huntress joked in turn, glad the hot water gave her more than enough reason to be red already as she caught what the other woman was implying. Aloy would be lying if she tried to claim that she hadn’t been wondering what Erend might think of her hair, particularly now. Brand’s peculiar covetousness had irked the woman, but the thought of her friend admiring her red locks was much more pleasant to contemplate.

It was an odd thought; thanks to her isolated upbringing, Aloy never had been the sort to pay much mind to what people might think of her physical appearance. But, just as she’d found herself admiring Erend’s features the day before, Aloy couldn’t help but hope he felt the same when he looked at her. She rather suspected he did, what with his smiles and the- well, the occasional staring she caught him at…

“How about I introduce you, then?” Bana offered and turned to reach back into her basket where she’d left it within arms reach of the bath, and fetched out a comb. It was a thing of beauty; cunningly crafted from a segment of white machine armor and engraved with coiling vines and flowers, though Aloy only got a brief look at it before the healer motioned for the younger woman to turn in place.

The huntress did as instructed, an unexpected bout of nerves overtaking her as Bana carefully worked her long, red hair out of the knot she’d tied it up in. She couldn’t remember anyone but Rost touching her hair like this, and even that had only been as a child. Once she’d been old enough to do it herself, the old warrior had left her to tend it on her own. “That’s a pretty comb,” Aloy blurted out, feeling ridiculous, though Bana didn’t seem to think so.

“Thank you,” the older woman said, smile apparent in her voice as she sat behind Aloy and gently began to work the comb through the huntress’ troublesome locks, starting from the bottom and gradually making her way up, a few inches at a time. “It was a gift from my husband not long before he died,” she added quietly a moment later.

It took everything in Aloy not to flinch. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories-” she began but Bana only smiled and gently turned the younger woman’s head back around so she could keep working.

“It’s quite alright,” she said, and the huntress found herself gradually relaxing under her hands. Having someone else comb her hair was surprisingly soothing, which wasn’t something she remembered feeling when Rost had forced her to sit still long enough to do the same when she was a child. “I love this comb very much, it always brings back good memories of my time with him,” Bana clarified and Aloy smiled, thinking of the necklace Rost had given her before the proving and feeling much the same.

“I know what you mean,” the younger woman said, eyes half-closed as Bana continued to work the comb through her hair, slowly but surely taming it. She gave a jolt and looked towards the door when she heard someone enter a minute later, however, and was greeted with the sight of Gelda, who seemed surprised to see anyone else there.

The other woman stripped and put her things in one of the cubbies, then approached the showers as she said, “And here I thought I was being clever coming in the middle of the day.”

“Are they done with the petitions already?” Aloy asked and Gelda snorted as she pulled on one of the chains. “Hardly, but Erend doesn’t need me to help him shout at people, he’s got his cousin and the elders for that,” she mused wryly as she scrubbed, motions quick and efficient under the torrent of water.

Bana reached out and gently turned Aloy’s head back around again so she could keep working, then cast Gelda an inviting smile and said, “Well, you’ve plenty of time, then; why don’t you join us for a soak?”

Gelda finished rinsing and turned off the water, then pushed her dark, chin length hair back from her face to consider the other woman. “Alright, why not,” she remarked and grabbed her towel before approaching the bath, leaving it at the water’s edge before lowering herself in.

“That’s the spirit,” Bana said approvingly, then finally released her hold on Aloy and proclaimed, “There, all done. Now tie it back up and you can rinse it under the shower when we get out.”

The huntress did as instructed, though not before combing her fingers through the now silken strands to appreciate the other woman’s hard work. Her hair was even softer than before. “Thank you,” she said, touched by the care and attention Bana had afforded her. A soft, rueful laugh escaped Aloy as she admitted, “I’ve been spoiled the last few days; if you’re not careful you’ll never get rid of me.”

Placing her damp washcloth over her eyes as she leaned her head back against the edge of the tub, Gelda remarked, “She’s onto you, Bana.”

The healer splashed water at the other woman, but Gelda ignored it, so Bana turned her attention back to Aloy and said, “Well, you’d be very welcome, you know.”

Stunned, Aloy stared at the woman for a long moment, then managed to eek out, “I- thank you, but my mission-”

Bana gave a little sigh and nodded as she reached back into her basket to return the comb, and came out with a bottle that had been tucked away beneath their towels. “Ah, yes, I heard,” she mused with a sad sort of smile that perked up almost immediately as she pried the top off the bottle and said, “Well, that’s alright. There’s always next time.”

“Next time?” Aloy asked, baffled by the turn in conversation.

Bana nodded. “Well, this is hardly your last visit, is it?” the woman remarked as she took a drink.

“Well, no,” the huntress replied, taken aback and unaccountably flushed. Maybe she’d spent too much time in the bath, she felt strangely unable to keep up with the conversation.

“You’ll need to keep an eye on Ilsa,” Gelda remarked out of nowhere, lifting the cloth from her eyes to look at Bana when the healer glanced her way. The warrior took the bottle of wine from the older woman, then straightened and took a drink. “She already tried to get Erend to propose to Magda.”

“What!” Bana exclaimed and rather than too hot, Aloy suddenly felt like someone had replaced all the blood in her veins with ice.

Gelda hummed, not seeming anywhere near so worked up as the healer. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much- they both shot her down,” she continued after a moment. “I wasn’t there for it, but you should’ve _heard_ Magda tearing into her mama afterwards down in the kitchen,” Gelda said with a rare laugh and took another swig from the bottle before passing it back to Bana. “That’s good, brew it yourself?”

Bana didn’t have a chance to answer as the door opened again and, as if summoned by their conversation, revealed Magda, who took an immediate step backwards when she saw all three women watching her intently. She glanced behind her, seeming to expect they were looking at someone else, but, finding no one, asked, “What?”

“Your mother tried to marry you off to my nephew!” Bana exclaimed, nearly sloshing her tightly held bottle of what Aloy suspected was some sort of spirit.

The huntress’ gaze was all for Magda, though, and she didn’t need to know the other woman well to recognize the expression of bone deep exhaustion that crossed her features at the healer’s words. Finally, she sighed and set down her things, then said, “If you want to hear about it, you’ll have to share that bottle of yours or you’ll get nothing from me.”

While they waited for Magda to put her things away and wash, Bana seemed to calm a little and offered Aloy an apologetic smile before passing her the bottle and saying, “Here, try.”

The huntress gave it a doubtful look, not much in the mood for ale until the scent of something sweeter caught her nose. “What is it?” she asked and accepted the bottle.

“Mead,” Bana explained. “Fermented fruit and honey, some spices… it’s quite good for you.” Behind her, Gelda snorted and the healer cut her a look. “Good for your _spirit_ ,” she clarified pointedly.

“Well, if the healer says so,” Aloy mused with a wry smile and took a sip. It _was_ good, she realized as the alcohol’s sweet warmth rolled over her tongue and left a trail of heat down her throat when she swallowed. Much better than the ‘scrappersap’ Oseram _normally_ went on about. “I like it,” she said, pleased as she took another drink, then passed the bottle back to Gelda when the other woman held out her hand for it.

Smiling proudly, Bana explained, “Well thank you; I brewed it myself.”

Gelda swallowed her mouthful and sighed as she handed the bottle back to the healer. “I miss having my own still,” she opined wistfully and leaned back against the edge of the bath again, arms floating freely at her sides.

“Still sharing a room?” Magda asked sympathetically as she finished washing and joined them in the bath at last. “I might be able to bump you up the list, if you want. I’m sure Erend wouldn’t object.”

Gelda heaved another sigh. “No, I’ll manage. Better for any extra space to go to families first, they need it more than I do. It can wait.”

Realizing their guest likely didn’t know what they were talking about, Bana explained to Aloy, “So many people came with Erend that we were quite short on space to house them all before the rebuilding started. It’s still a work in progress.”

The huntress made a sound of understanding but the subject was quickly dropped in favor of the more interesting one at hand as Magda reached out to claim the bottle of mead for herself and took a long drink before settling back in the water.

“I think it was the most embarrassed I’ve ever been in my entire life,” the cook admitted as she thought back to the day in question and took another drink before launching into the story. It wasn’t a long one, though it did provide Aloy with details about the fight Erend had gotten into with his uncle before he’d banished the man. At the end of it, the huntress felt nothing but sympathy for Magda, who had very nearly found herself saddled with a second husband through no desire of her own. “Forge bless him, Erend shot her down as fast as I did,” the woman said, corners of her mouth quirking up as she passed the bottle on to Aloy, who obliged and took another sip, allowing its warmth to thaw the ice in her veins.

The shock Aloy had received hearing Erend had nearly been engaged to another woman put her own feelings into sharp perspective, leaving her cradling the bottle of mead pensively. Last night, when her friend had looked at her with such tenderness… she’d wanted to lay claim to him for herself, though in what way she hadn’t been quite certain. Now, though, any doubt she’d been harboring was rapidly burning away as it occurred to her that her friend really was quite the catch, and while she wasn’t ready to settle down just yet, maybe staking a claim wasn’t such a bad idea after all… Would Erend be willing to wait for her, though? Was it even fair to ask that of him?

“He doesn’t have eyes for anyone but you, you know; you don’t need to worry,” Magda reassured Aloy, startling the huntress from her thoughts and bringing her back into the moment to find all three women looking at her.

Aloy immediately flushed and Gelda snorted. “As if any woman has even made Erend blink since the day he met his flamehaired maiden.”

Bana chuckled, seeming pleased as she took back her bottle from Aloy, who laughed and, not quite equal to the subject, tried to change it. “You know, I’ve traveled all over and I don’t think any tribe likes giving people nicknames as much as the Oseram do,” she remarked. “Flamehair, forgewrought, bright spark, heart of my forge-”

Magda’s eyebrows shot up and Gelda blinked as Bana choked on the mouthful of mead she’d just taken, startling Aloy. “Are you alright?” she asked worriedly and reached out to the older woman while Gelda gave the healer a solid slap on the back, which seemed to help her system finally sort itself out.

Fanning herself a little as Magda relieved her of the bottle before she accidentally dropped it in the bath, Bana managed to croak, “Did _Erend_ call you that?”

“What? Heart of my forge?” Aloy guessed uncertainly, taken aback by the sudden intensity of her companions’ regard. “Yes?” she hazarded, drawing out the vowel as Bana broke out into a wide smile and Gelda rolled her eyes, seeming amused more than anything.

Magda gave a wistful sort of sigh. “He _is_ the sort, isn’t he?”

“Of course he is,” Gelda answered with a soft huff. “Have you met him?”

The cook pinched the other woman, making her grimace as Aloy asked, “I… guess that one means something special?” the color high in her cheeks at their reaction. It _had_ seemed like a nice epithet when he’d used it, but apparently it meant even more than she’d guessed.

“It’s terribly romantic,” Bana said with a wistful sigh of her own. “Not really the sort of thing one says casually,” she explained with a coy smile as her gaze fixed on Aloy and she scooted closer to her in the bath. “Tell me _all_ about it, bright spark. What were the two of you doing? Where were you?”

“I, uh-” Aloy looked at Gelda and Magda for help, but found that they seemed just as interested as the healer. Realizing there would be no help from that quarter, the huntress heaved a sigh, resigning herself to the rather novel experience of discussing her budding love life with her new friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Make sure to drop a comment letting me know what your favorite part was! That really helps keep me writing TwT


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